Southern Union Co. v. United States
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned an $18 million fine imposed against a pipeline operator for storing liquid mercury at one of its facilities without a permit in violation of RCRA. In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, the Court held that the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee requires th...
Pennsylvania v. Lockheed Martin Corp.
The Third Circuit vacated as moot a lower court decision that dismissed a contractor's third-party complaint against Pennsylvania and the commonwealth's natural resources agency for cleanup costs associated with Quehanna Wild Area Nuclear Site. The contractor argued that the lower court erred by...
Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice v. Union Pacific Corp.
A district court dismissed environmental groups' complaint against two railroad companies alleging that diesel particulate matter (DPM) emitted by diesel-engine locomotives, trucks, and other equipment has caused and is causing an imminent and substantial risk to human health and the environment...
American Petroleum Institute v. Environmental Protection Agency,
The D.C. Circuit held unripe an oil and natural gas association's petition for review challenging a 2008 EPA regulation deregulating many hazardous secondary materials under RCRA. The association argued that EPA erred in not including in the deregulation a category of hazardous secondary materia...
New York v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
The D.C. Circuit vacated NRC rulemakings concerning the temporary storage and permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Four states, an Indian community, and a number of environmental groups filed a petition for review challenging NRC's "waste confidence decision" (WCD), which, among other thing...
National Ass'n of Regulatory Utility Commissioners v. United States Department of Energy
The D.C. Circuit held that the DOE Secretary's 2010 determination that there was no basis for suspending, or otherwise adjusting, annual fees collected from nuclear power plant owners and operators following the government's decision to discontinue its development of Yucca Mountain violated the Nucl...