The court upheld a lower court decision dismissing an environmental service company's patent infringement suit against a hazardous waste remediation contractor. The contractor was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up a lead-contaminated parcel of land near Colonie, New York. The com...

The Ninth Circuit held that yellowfin tuna caught by encircling dolphins with purse-seine nets may not be labeled "dolphin-safe." Environmental groups challenged the Secretary of Commerce's finding that tuna caught with purse-seine nets does not have an adverse impact on dolphin populations. But the...

The Ninth Circuit vacated a lower court decision granting in part and denying in part cross-motions for summary judgment in a case concerning the validity of the federal government's policy for listing killer whales under the Endangered Species Act. Since the lower court issued its decision, the Nat...

The Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court decision denying a citizen group's lawsuit to enjoin the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) approved operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a nuclear waste repository located in southeastern New Mexico. The group argued that DOE relied on faulty data re...

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...

The court held unripe a petition challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) decision to grant a license permitting the construction and operation of a spent nuclear fuel storage facility on land belonging to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Utah. After the NRC approved the li...

The Federal Claims Court held that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) must pay two nuclear utilities over $77 million in damages for failing to commence performance of its contract to accept, transport, and dispose of the utilities' spent nuclear fuel. Under the contract, DOE was to start accepting...

The Second Circuit affirmed an individual's conviction and sentence for knowingly importing exotic birds, African black sparrowhawks, into the United States in violation of the Wild Bird Conservation Act and for making false statements to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with regard to that import...

A Michigan appellate court upheld a lower court's imposition of over $2.5 million in penalties against the owners of a gas station for failing to comply with certain orders and statutory requirements in remediating contamination due to leaking underground storage tanks at the site. The trial court a...

The Ninth Circuit vacated as moot a dispute concerning the federal government's policy for listing killer whales under the Endangered Species Act. An environmental group filed suit after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Fisheries denied its petition to list the Southern Res...