A district court held that BLM violated NEPA by failing to adequately consider climate change in the resource management plans (RMPs) for Buffalo, Wyoming, and Miles City, Montana, both located within the coal-rich Powder River Basin. BLM's EISs failed to consider any alternative that would decrease...

A district court granted California cities' motions to remand their climate change tort actions against oil and gas companies back to state court. Although their state law claims raise national and perhaps global questions, they should not have been removed to federal court. Removal based on federal...

A Pennsylvania appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court's decision that the owner of an oil and gas company should be liable for failing to plug 47 abandoned oil and gas wells located in Erie and Crawford Counties. The state environmental agency issued an administrative order requiring th...

The D.C. Circuit clarified an earlier ruling vacating portions of a 2015 rule that defined when certain hazardous materials were deemed discarded—as opposed to legitimately recycled—and therefore subject to EPA's oversight under RCRA. In 2017, the court upheld some aspects of the rule and vacate...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed a mining company's lawsuit challenging EPA's decision to place the entire Bonita Peak Mining District, located in Colorado's Mineral Belt, on the NPL. The mining company owns a mine located in the district, but its mine was not one of the sites scored under the hazard rank...

A district court held that San Francisco and Oakland, California, may not remove back to state court their climate change public nuisance actions against several oil companies. The defendants—the largest cumulative producers of fossil fuels worldwide—timely invoked federal common law as a ground...

The Ninth Circuit held that NOAA did not go beyond its authority when it took climate change into account when considering the ESA status of the Arctic ringed seal. In 2012, NOAA listed the Arctic ringed seal as threatened based on projected sea ice loss. Oil and gas companies challenged the ruling,...

A district court held that residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago cannot intervene in a CERCLA settlement agreement after the agreement was approved. In 2016, residents of the housing complex were told to evacuate the complex because of severe contamination from the USS Lead S...

A district court dismissed CERCLA claims against a construction company because there was no evidence that its actions contributed to soil contamination near the site. A contractor purchased topsoil from a company that is adjacent to a road where the construction company installed a water main three...