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...

The Fourth Circuit vacated both an incidental take statement issued by FWS and a right-of-way permit issued by the National Park Service (NPS) for construction of a natural gas pipeline that intersects the Blue Ridge Parkway. Environmental groups argued that the take limits set by FWS in its Inciden...

The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded BLM's decision granting a right-of-way through federal land for construction of a pipeline and the U.S. Forest Service's decision to amend the Jefferson National Forest Land Resource Management Plan to accommodate the right-of-way and pipeline construction. En...

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 Fourth Circuit affirmed a lower court's dismissal of landowners' challenge to FERC's approval of a natural gas pipeline. The landowners argued that the agency's practice of letting pipeline builders use eminent domain authority to take land once their project is approved is unconstitutional beca...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a religious group's challenge to FERC's approval of a natural gas pipeline along land owned by the group. The group objected to the use of their land as part of the project, explaining that their deeply held religious beliefs require that they ...