Tinicum Township v. United States Department of Transportation
The Third Circuit denied petitions for review under NEPA challenging the FAA's approval of an expansion project at the Philadelphia International Airport. The FAA prepared an EIS and conducted an air quality analysis to meet the overlapping requirements of NEPA and the CAA, and EPA submitted comment...
Delaware Dept. of Natural Resources & Environmental Control v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The Third Circuit held that a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers complied with NEPA, the CWA, and the CZMA in its decision to deepen the main channel of the Delaware River by five feet. The Corps' 2009 EA was neither arbitrary nor capricious. The Corps complied with the procedural requirements prescribed ...
League of Wilderness Defenders v. United States Forest Service
A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service violated NEPA, but not the NFMA, in approving the use of herbicides to control invasive plant species in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest comprises 2.3 million acres in the northeast corner of Oregon and the w...
Colorado Environmental Coalition v. Salazar
A district court vacated and remanded BLM's resource management plan and EIS for the Roan Plateau Planning Area in Colorado. BLM considered a number of alternatives in its NEPA analysis, but ultimately decided to permit the leasing of 100% of the plateau for oil and gas drilling subject to vario...
Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency
The D.C. Circuit upheld four EPA rulemakings governing greenhouse gases. EPA issued the rules following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), in which the Court clarified that greenhouse gases meet the definition of an air pollutant under the CAA. Petit...
Thrun v. Cuomo
A New York court dismissed individuals' lawsuit challenging the legality of New York's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional cap-and-trade plan for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The individuals claimed they had standing because, as electric utility ratepaye...
Association of Irritated Residents v. California Air Resources Board
A California appellate court held that the California Air Resources Board's (CARB's) climate change scoping plan, designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, complies with the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. The Global Solutions Warming Act requires CARB to ...