The Fifth Circuit vacated portions of EPA's 2008 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) rule. The rule requires CAFOs that propose to discharge to apply for an NPDES permit. But there must be an actual discharge into navigable waters to trigger the CWA's requirements. EPA, therefore,...
The D.C. Circuit upheld the Surface Transportation Board's imposition of environmental mitigation conditions in its approval of a "minor" railroad merger. The case involved the acquisition of a small "non-Class I" railroad by a larger "Class I" railroad company. Because the acquisition invol...
The Wyoming Supreme Court upheld a state-issued air quality permit authorizing a power plant's construction of a proposed coal-to-liquid facility and an associated underground coal mine. The court rejected an environmental group's claims that the permit fails to consider significant sulfur d...
A district court set aside a U.S. Forest Service rule exempting the Tongass National Forest—the nation's largest—from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The court ruled that the exemption was arbitrary and capricious because the Forest Service failed to provide a rational basis for temporarily...
The Fifth Circuit granted EPA's request to transfer to the D.C. Circuit Texas' petition for review of the Agency's call for revisions to the state's SIP because its prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) provisions fail to control greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases have not always bee...
A district court ordered the Bureau of Ocean Exploration Management, Regulation, and Enforcement to act on five pending deepwater drilling permit applications within 30 days. The permit applicant met all the necessary requirements for a preliminary injunction. The Outer Continental Shelf Lan...
A district court held that the CAA preempts a city transit employee's negligence and strict liability claims against a company for injuries stemming from diesel exhaust fumes. The employees alleged that the design of the company's buses violated the emissions standards set out in the CAA and...
The Ninth Circuit, in a case concerning the NRC's approval of a proposed interim spent fuel storage installation at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, held that the NRC's refusal to grant a nonprofit group access to sensitive information in a closed adjudicatory hearing was not arbitrary, capric...
The Ninth Circuit granted citizen groups' petition for review of a final action by EPA approving in part and disapproving in part revisions to California's SIP for meeting CAA air quality standards for ozone. EPA's failure to order California to submit a revised attainment plan for the South...
The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded DOE's energy transmission congestion study and national interest electric transmission (NIET) corridor designations prepared under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct). The EPAct added §216 to the Federal Power Act, requiring DOE to prepare the conges...