A district court dismissed international shipping entities' lawsuit seeking to invalidate Michigan's Ballast Water Statute, which is aimed to prevent the introduction of aquatic nuisance species into the Great Lakes. The statute requires all oceangoing vessels to obtain permits from the state if the...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's ban on rock climbing on Cave Rock, a large rock formation on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. While the formation holds religious and cultural significance to a Native American tribe, the ban had a secular purpose and had no impermissible re...

The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision allowing a chicken plant owner's equal protection claims against various state and local officials to go forward. The owner filed a §1983 suit against the officials on the theory that they violated the owner's constitutional righ...

The court upholds the denial of a church's motion for a preliminary restraining order to prevent the relocation of a cemetery in conjunction with plans to renovate Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Eminent domain does not constitute a "land use" regulation subject to the Religious Land Use and...

The Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s judgment that no taking occurred on a Pennsylvania family farm where a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consent decree required appellant-farmer to reestablish wetlands on a portion of the farm. The farm is an integrated whole despite the exis...

A district court denied plaintiff environmental group's motion for summary judgment under the Administrative Procedure Act to compel compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and to enforce a 1987 stipulation. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) did not violate NEPA's policy prohi...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of an action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and others under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in which an environmental group sought injunctive, declaratory, and other relief relating to the preparation of certain environmental...

The D.C. Circuit denied citizen advocacy groups' claim that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Atomic Energy Act when it granted a license for a new, privately owned facility in New Mexico to produce enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear reactors....

A district court dismissed environmental groups' claim that the Department of Homeland Security's waiver of various federal environmental laws with respect to the construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border under the REAL ID Act of 2005 was unconstitutional. The court lacks the power to in...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Alaska native groups seeking to rescind certain oil and gas leases issued by the Minerals Management Service (MMS) in 2007. The MMS prepared an EIS in 2003 for lease sales that were to occur in 2003, 2005, and 2007. Because of the time lag between the 20...