The Sixth Circuit reversed a district court ruling in a lawsuit concerning 12 oil refinery sites that operated during World War II. The current owner of the refineries sought contribution from the U.S. government for environmental contamination discovered at the sites, arguing the government's produ...
The D.C. Circuit denied petitions to review EPA's promulgation of a rule that regulates the emission of greenhouse gases from aircraft engines under CAA §231 by aligning domestic standards with those recently promulgated by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Twelve states, the Di...
The D.C. Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions to review EPA's revisions to designations promulgated in 2018 for northern Weld County, Colorado, and El Paso, Texas, as areas that had attained 2015 ozone pollution standards. The revised designations folded Weld County into the greater ...
The name of the climate game right now is fast, sustained progress. The world needs this both politically and technologically to effectively fight climate change. Progress was achieved both politically and technologically with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), which allocated $369 billion to “energy security and climate change,” amounting to the United States’ largest investment in climate action to date.
The D.C. Circuit, in a split ruling, vacated certain provisions of EPA's rule phasing out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Two companies and three trade groups argued EPA exceeded its authority in issuing the rule and that the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act, which directed the ...
The U.S. Supreme Court held, 5-4, that an 1868 peace treaty between the Navajo Nation and the United States establishing the Navajo Reservation reserved necessary water to accomplish the purpose of the reservation, but did not require the U.S. government to take affirmative steps to secure water for...
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, denied a municipal irrigation district's request to compel a district court to remand to state court its motion for preliminary injunction in a suit concerning water allocation in the Klamath Basin. The district initially sought to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from releasin...
A district court granted in part and denied in part an environmental group's motion for summary judgment in a CWA citizen suit concerning the Forest Service's discharge of aerially deployed fire retardant into navigable waters of the United States without an NPDES permit. The group argued the Servic...
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the CWA extends to only those "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right," such that they are indistinguishable from those waters, in a challenge to an EPA compliance order stating that landowner...
Carbon offsets allow polluters to pay someone else to reduce, avoid, or remove emissions to counterbalance their own emissions. For some, carbon accounting concerns render offsets a necessary evil to be tightly regulated on the path toward decarbonization. For others, moral and political concerns render offsets a dangerous mistake to be thrown out of the climate law toolbox.