A district court dismissed a challenge to the president's Executive Order No. 13990, which established an interagency working group on the social cost of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and directed the group to publish interim estimates for the social costs of GHG emissions. Thirteen states challenged the ...
A district court vacated and remanded EPA's and the Army Corps of Engineers' Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which established a new definition of "waters of the United States" under the CWA. EPA and the Corps sought voluntary remand of the rule without vacatur to give them time to revise or repla...
The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition to review EPA's final rule approving California's SIP for meeting the air quality standard for ozone in the San Joaquin Valley. An environmental group argued the SIP's contingency measure was inadequate because it provided only a nomina...
The Second Circuit denied two petitions to review EPA's final rule restricting access by customers to methylene chloride. A solvent company challenged the rule, arguing that the method of restricting customer use was arbitrary and capricious because of its incidental impact on commercial uses, and t...
The D.C. Circuit denied a challenge to EPA's 2015 rule updating the standards under which the Agency audits wood-burning heaters' compliance with CAA emissions limits. An industry group argued the rule was invalid because, unlike the 1988 rule, it authorized testing at other labs and neither account...
A state appellate court upheld the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission's (MPUC's) approval of affiliated-interest agreements for construction and operation of a natural gas-fired power plant in Wisconsin. Environmental groups argued substantial evidence did not support MPUC's determinations that t...
A district court denied a water district's motion to intervene in an ESA lawsuit seeking protections for longfin smelt. The water district argued it had standing to intervene because its alleged injury—a reduction in water allocation—was economic, its injury was traceable to plaintiff's claims s...
A district court granted in part and denied in part summary judgment for an environmental group and U.S. congressman in a lawsuit concerning enforcement activity along the U.S.-Mexico border. The plaintiffs argued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) violated NEPA by failing to issue a suppleme...
A district court vacated BLM's approval of an oil and gas project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Indigenous and environmental groups argued BLM violated NEPA by failing to adequately analyze the effects of the project's downstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its EIS, failing to c...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for EPA in a challenge to a compliance order stating that landowners' property in Idaho contained wetlands subject to CWA protection and directing them to remove fill and restore the property to its natural state. The appellate court concluded that EPA rea...