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 a group of youths' motion for leave to file a second amended complaint in a lawsuit alleging the U.S. government failed to act on climate change and violated their right to a safe climate. The youths had argued that the government violated their constitutional rights under t...
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 Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part dismissal of a challenge to the Forest Service's approval of grazing permits in Bridger-Teton National Forest that authorized the "lethal take" of grizzly bears. Environmental groups challenged the approval, arguing FWS violated the ESA because...
The D.C. Circuit granted in part environmental groups' petitions to review FERC orders allowing the Mountain Valley Pipeline project to proceed. The groups argued FERC erred by allowing construction to resume before the pipeline owner reacquired all its other permits, that constructing segments of t...
The D.C. Circuit dismissed industry groups' petitions to review EPA's decision not to reconsider its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles contribute to climate change and thus endanger public health and welfare. The groups initially petitioned EPA to reconsider its fi...
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.
In January 2021, the mining sector was made eligible for coverage under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41) program, a pilot project designed to expedite federal permitting. Although mining projects have been eligible for over two years, only recently was the first one posted on the Permitting Dashboard.
Climate change is ravaging the flora and fauna of the United States and contributes to ecosystem damage, including the conversion of Alaskan forests to savannah grasslands, rising sea levels that have destroyed the Key deer’s habitat, and warming regional temperatures that have stifled the growth of crops in the Northeast. What if there were a way for species to thrive away from the sinking coasts and changing landscapes that they have historically inhabited?