A district court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts and consequences of dredging and disposing of contaminated sediment from the Industrial Canal, a five-mile link just east of New Orleans in the navigational system that connects the ...
A district court granted in part and denied in part cross-motions for summary judgment in a case challenging the National Park Service's (NPS') decision to exempt from agency oversight directional drilling activities in and around Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas. Directional drilling refers t...
The court upheld the Atomic Safety Licensing Board's dismissal of environmental groups' intervention in early site permit proceedings for new nuclear power facilities in Clinton, Illinois. The groups contended, among other things, that the applicant failed to adequately consider energy efficiency or...
The court held that the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) environmental assessment (EA) for a logging project in Oregon violated the National Environmental Policy Act and that the lower court erred in dismissing the case as moot. Although the harvested trees cannot be restored, harm to old gro...
A district court held that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) arbitrarily and capriciously denied petitions to list certain genetically engineered varieties of grasses as noxious weeds under the Plant Protection Act. APHIS' insistence that international obligations require that p...
A district court held that the DOE's March 2003 decision regarding the remediation of Area IV of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, California, violated NPA. DOE's decision to issue a FONSI rather than prepare an EIS was a clear error of judgment. The remediation is not categorically ...
The D.C. Circuit set aside an FAA letter that changed the runway use procedures at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Petitioners argued that the new procedures will route more jet aircraft onto two previously restricted runways, thereby increasing noise, soot, and exhaust fumes over r...
A district court held that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries (NOAA-Fisheries) did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it chose not to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) or environmental assessment for its Hatchery Listing Policy (HLP) fo...
A court an amendment to a county zoning regulation that prohibits the siting of liquefied natural gas facilities in the Chesapeake Bay Critical Areas of Baltimore County, Maryland. The amendment is not preempted by the Natural Gas Act and is within the delegated authority of the state of Maryland an...
A district court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it prepared an environmental assessment (EA) in lieu of an environmental impact statement for proposed levee work along the Missouri River. The EA failed to properly consider the cu...