A district court held that a minor may bring a climate change lawsuit against the state of New Mexico under the public trust doctrine. The minor made a substantive allegation that, notwithstanding statutes enacted by the New Mexico legislature that enable the state to set air quality standards, the ...

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...

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...

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 ...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit filed by nongovernmental organizations and a group of minors claiming that six federal agencies violated their fiduciary duties to preserve and protect the atmosphere as a commonly shared public trust resource under the public trust doctrine. The public trust...

The Virginia Supreme Court, upon rehearing a case, once again held that under Virginia law, an insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify an energy company in an underlying lawsuit brought by a native Alaskan village for damages allegedly caused by global warming through the emission of greenhou...