The Ninth Circuit upheld the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE's) approval of oil spill response plans for an oil company's leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas on Alaska's Arctic coast. Several environmental groups claimed that BSEE's approval was arbitrary and capricious un...

The Tenth Circuit held the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not violate NEPA, the CWA, or nationwide permit (NWP) 12 when it allowed an energy company to build a 485-mile oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas under the general permit. The pipeline, part of a larger network of pipelines to transport oi...

The D.C. Circuit held that energy companies lack standing to challenge EPA's determination that carbon dioxide (CO2) streams injected into Class VI wells for the purpose of geologic sequestration constitute "solid waste" subject to RCRA. Class VI wells are designated to receive CO2 streams generated...

The D.C. Circuit held that a home builders' association lacked standing to challenge EPA's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' determination that two reaches of the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona constitute "traditional navigable waters" (TNW) under the CWA. The court previously held in a si...

A Maryland appellate court affirmed a lower court decision remanding a stormwater management permit that the state's environmental agency issued to a county. The permit did not fall short for failing to hold the county to state water quality standards, as urged by an environmental group challenging ...

A district court, on remand from the First Circuit, dismissed environmental groups' CWA claim against the operators of four hydroelectric dams along the Kennebec River. The groups alleged that the operators are in violation of their water quality certifications, and thus the CWA, because they failed...

A district court granted summary judgment in favor of a coal company, thereby dismissing environmental groups' CWA claim that the company violated its NPDES permit. The dispute centered on the parties' competing interpretations of a boilerplate condition of all of the company's NPDES permits that pr...

The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision ordering EPA to determine whether new water quality standards were necessary to control nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the mainstem of the Mississippi River and the Northern Gulf of Mexico. The case arose after EPA denied environme...

The Eighth Circuit held that a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jurisdictional determination (JD) is a final agency action under the APA, thereby creating a split between the circuits. The case arose after a company sought to mine peat from wetland property owned by two affiliated companies in northwest...

A district court held that EPA does not have a mandatory duty to review an amendment to the Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act under the CWA. The amendment allows the use of certain on-lot sewage systems to satisfy the state's antidegradation requirements. An environmental group claimed the amendmen...