A district court granted in part and denied in part the city of Berkeley's motion to dismiss a challenge to its recently enacted ordinance affecting the availability of natural gas in new construction within the city. A restaurant group argued the ordinance was federally preempted by the Energy Poli...
The D.C. Circuit affirmed dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Indian fishermen and farmers against the World Bank in connection with a $450 million loan issued for the construction of a coal-fired power plant in India. The plaintiffs argued the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) shou...
A district court dismissed a lawsuit concerning the city of Chicago’s delay in issuing an operating permit for a recycling facility in the city’s Southeast Side neighborhood. The company argued its constitutional rights were being violated as a result of the city’s delay of the permit review p...
The Tenth Circuit reversed dismissal of a lawsuit concerning a New Mexico city's imposition of fees on residents who generate their own electricity via solar panels. The residents and an advocacy group argued the city's fees amounted to price discrimination in violation of FERC rules. The district c...
The Iowa Supreme Court reversed, 4-3, a lower court order denying Iowa's motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by nonprofit groups seeking to reduce fertilizer and waste runoff from farms into the Racoon River. The groups sought to force the state, its agencies, and a number of its officials to enact ...
A district court granted summary judgment for EPA in a FOIA lawsuit brought by a nonprofit group. The group requested a 2018 draft version of the Agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) formaldehyde assessment. EPA withheld the assessment under the deliberative process privilege, and the ...
The U.S. Supreme Court held, 6-3, that a small refinery that previously received a hardship exemption from renewable fuel requirements may obtain an "extension" even if it saw a lapse in exemption coverage in a previous year. A group of renewable fuel producers had petitioned for review of EPA's gra...
A district court dismissed two Pennsylvania state senators' challenge to the Delaware River Basin Commission's imposition of a moratorium on gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Delaware Basin. The senators argued, among other things, that the moratorium exceeded the Commission's authority. ...
The Fourth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for a county in South Carolina in a lawsuit concerning the county's alleged taking of honey sellers' bees. The sellers argued their bees died after the county sprayed pesticide in an effort to kill mosquitoes, and thus constituted a Fifth Amendment taking...