A district court held that BLM failed to take a "hard look" at the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing with regard to the agency's resource management plan (RMP) for public lands in California's central region. Under the resource management plan, 25% of new wells are expected to use hydraul...

The Seventh Circuit denied petitions for review challenging two DOE rules aimed at improving the energy efficiency of commercial refrigeration equipment. The first rule adopted new energy efficiency standards for commercial refrigeration equipment, and the second rule, issued a month later, clarifie...

The D.C. Circuit held that FWS violated NEPA when it issued an incidental take permit for the Indiana bat, an endangered species, in connection with a wind farm project in Ohio. Because the farm may pose a danger to the bat, the developer applied for an incidental take permit and submitted a conserv...

The D.C. Circuit, in a 162-page opinion, granted in part and denied in part petitions challenging three EPA rules setting NESHAPs for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers and commercial and industrial solid waste incinerator (CISWI) units. The petitioners brought approximately 30 challe...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's compliance deadlines for states to meet the NAAQS for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The court previously had ruled that the framework EPA had been applying to PM2.5 was incorrect, and ordered the Agency to apply a stricter statutory framework. EPA then promulgated th...

The Fifth Circuit stayed EPA's regional haze plan for Oklahoma and Texas until the underlying petitions for review challenging the rule are resolved. Texas, energy companies, power plants, and others challenged EPA's action disapproving Oklahoma's and Texas' plans and imposing its own plans instead....