A district court denied summary judgment for environmental and tribal groups in a challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to issue permits under the CWA and the Rivers and Harbors Act for a project to replace sections of an oil pipeline in Minnesota. The groups argued the Corps' decision ...
A district court granted summary judgment for nonprofit groups in a challenge to an Iowa statute aimed at preventing them from recording images or videos of conditions in slaughterhouses and other animal facilities. The groups argued that the statute impermissibly restricted their First Amendment fr...
A district court vacated two rights-of-way that BLM issued to a company in 2020 to transport water through an existing gas pipeline across federal lands. Environmental groups sought vacatur, arguing the rights-of-way violated FLPMA, NEPA, and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). BLM agreed...
A district court affirmed DOI’s decision to postpone oil and gas lease sales in the first quarter of 2021 in response to the president’s issuance of Executive Order No. 14008 pausing new lease sales on federal lands. The state of Wyoming and industry groups challenged DOI’s decisions to postpo...
The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court’s dismissal of a lawsuit concerning a 2019 Texas law that allows only owners of existing transmission lines in the state to build, own, or operate new lines that connect to existing lines. A company seeking to enter the state...
The D.C. Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part summary judgment for DOI in a challenge to a supplemental EIS that BOEM prepared for two oil and gas lease sales in 2018. Three environmental groups had argued that BOEM failed to assess a true “no action” alternative because it assumed ener...
A district court reinstated a 2016 moratorium on new coal leasing on public lands that had been lifted by a DOI secretarial order in 2017. Environmental groups, states, and a Native American tribe initially filed suit challenging DOI's decision to lift the moratorium, and the court determined the de...