The court holds that a district court erred in ruling that Florida is entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity in a limitation of liability proceeding, but it correctly dismissed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) and Florida Pollution Discharge Prevention Act claims brought against the owners of th...

The court holds that an environmental group is not entitled to a preliminary injunction suspending a proposed retail development's construction permit and ordering the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) addressing the development's impact on flooding. The...

The court upholds as reasonable and fair a settlement agreement in a citizen suit challenging the federal government's failure to perform Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) duties concerning mountaintop mining in West Virginia. The agreement purported to settle environmental groups' claims ...

The court holds a landowner liable under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) for discharging polluted stormwater without a permit into a stream on his property that flows into ponds on his neighbors' property. The discharges occurred when the landowner was harvesting timber and developin...

The court holds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision to implement the direct federal underground injection control (UIC) program on certain New Mexico lands based on their Native American or disputed jurisdictional status did not violate either the Safe Drinking Water Act...

The court holds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated Safe Drinking Water Act §1412(b)(3)(A)'s statutory mandate to use the best available evidence when it implemented the chloroform maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG). During rulemaking for the chloroform MCLG, EPA ostensi...

The U.S. Supreme Court holds that a Native American tribe's and U.S. claims to additional water rights from the Colorado River are not precluded by a previous Court decision or by a 1983 consent decree entered into by the United States and the tribe. The tribe's and the government's present claims a...

The court holds that a trial court erred in resolving water right priorities in an overdrafted basin with a "physical solution" that relies on the equitable apportionment doctrine but does not consider the affected owners' legal rights in the basin. Landowners who had overlying water rights in the M...

The court holds that the Price-Anderson Act does not expressly prohibit the Navajo tribal court from determining its jurisdiction over tribal members' personal injury and wrongful death claims arising from uranium mining activities on the Navajo Nation Reservation. The court first holds that defenda...

The court holds that a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report classifying environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a known carcinogen violated the Radon Gas and Indoor Air Quality Research Act. The report classifies ETS as a group A carcinogen known to cause cancer in humans. The court first ...