A district court granted in part environmental groups' request for judicial review of BLM's resource management plan (RMP) for an area in the Colorado River Valley. The groups argued that the agency failed to consider the severity and impacts of greenhouse gas pollution and climate change, methane e...

A district court preliminarily enjoined BLM from conducting oil and gas lease sales under the procedures of a new BLM directive. Environmental groups argued that the directive unlawfully constrains environmental review of, and public participation in, oil and gas lease decisions that affect and thre...

A district court ordered the State Department to supplement its 2014 EIS for a cross-border oil pipeline, known as Keystone XL, to consider the pipeline company's alternative route that was approved for the project. Environmental groups argued that the agency violated NEPA by failing to revisit its ...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a district court's summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Forest Service's approval of a site-specific project concerning restoration activities on roughly 80,000 acres in Payette National Forest in Idaho. Environmental groups challenged the app...

A Minnesota appellate court affirmed a lower court ruling in favor of a county's zoning ordinance that bans all industrial-mineral mining, including silica-sand mining. A silica-sand mining company argued that the ordinance discriminated against its business. But the lower court disagreed, concludin...

A district court denied in part environmental groups' motion for summary judgment challenging BLM's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a project to replace a wooden diversion weir with a concrete dam along the Yellowstone River. The groups argued that the agencies' EIS violated NEPA b...

The D.C. Circuit granted in part a Native American tribe's petition to review NRC's license decision for construction of a uranium mining project in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The tribe, which has historical ties to the proposed project area, argued that the agency failed to comply with NEPA b...

The D.C. Circuit denied an environmental group's petition to review FERC orders authorizing facilities to export natural gas from the United States to Mexico. The group argued that FERC, in addition to exercising jurisdiction over the export facilities at the border, also should have exercised juris...

The Fifth Circuit vacated a lower court's decision to preliminarily enjoin a pipeline company from constructing part of a pipeline through the Atchafalaya Basin, a sensitive wetlands area in southern Louisiana. Environmental groups argued that the EAs conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (C...

The D.C. Circuit vacated a license renewal that FERC granted for a power plant on the Coosa River. Environmental groups argued that the agency violated the Federal Power Act, NEPA, and the ESA when it issued the power company's license. The appellate court agreed, finding that the EA and biological ...