A district court denied environmental groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the use of genetically engineered sugar beets. On the likelihood of success on the merits, the court has already found that defendants, the USDA and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, viola...

A district court dismissed a city's RCRA and the California Hazardous Substances Account Act against the United States in a dispute concerning the environmental remediation of Old Hammer Field in Fresno, California. The site, presently occupied by an airport, was used by the United States as an Army...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the FWS' designation of critical habitat for the Mexican Spotted Owl. A cattle growers' association argued that the FWS unlawfully designated areas containing no owls as "occupied" habitat. But the FWS' interpretation of the word "occupied" in the ESA was permissible. The FW...

A district court expanded a preliminary injunction already in place to prevent the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from shipping any low-level or mixed low-level transuranic waste to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington. The risks associated with disposal of low-level or mixed low-level was...

The court affirmed the dismissal of a home builder association's claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in its promulgation of survey protocols to detect the endangered quino checkerspot butterfly in s...

The court holds that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) Fisheries erred when it denied a fishing vessel's application for an Aleutian Islands brown king crab endorsement under the license limitation program for the Bearing Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish and crab fisheries. Th...

The court dismisses as moot an animal advocacy group's claims against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for denying their petition to list the trumpeter swan in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming as endangered or threatened and for authorizing the limited take of the swans during the 2001 and 2002 h...

A court dismisses an environmental group's Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Environmental Policy Act claims against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries concerning logging activity on private lands in Humboldt County, California, a...

A court partially grants the U.S. motion to collaterally estop defendants from denying their liability as owners and operators of the Armour Road Superfund site in North Kansas City, Missouri. Except for one of the defendants, prior actions against the defendants were final, or sufficiently final, t...

The court upholds the dismissal of Wyoming's constitutional, Adminstrative Procedure Act (APA), Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act claims against the U.S. Department of the Interior for failing to initiate delisting of the gray wolf as an endangered species and for its all...