The court reverses a district court dismissal of a property owner's takings claim against a county as unripe. The owner alleged that the county impermissibly listed her driveway as a county road and would not delist it because a neighbor used it to access a road and get mail. The district court held...
The court holds that a state environmental conservation officer who was sued for allegedly violating the Fourth Amendment after he stopped a hunter at a motor vehicle checkpoint during hunting season to make deer tag and weapon safety checks is entitled to qualified immunity. The court first affirms...
The court holds that a real estate developer, whose proposed subdivision plat for land in Santa Fe, New Mexico, met all enumerated requirements for plat approval, was not entitled to approval of its proposed plat as a matter of federal constitutional law. The case arose after the city council revers...
The court grants Rhode Island's motion to preliminarily enjoin proceedings before the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in which several state employees sought damages and other relief against the state for allegedly violating the Solid Waste Disposal Act's whistleblower protection provision. The court...
The court affirms the dismissal of a hog farmer's complaint that alleged a taking of property by an Iowa city in violation of the Public Use Clauses of the U.S. and Iowa Constitutions. The farmer intended to use land bordering an airport for a hog manure lagoon. The city opposed the lagoon and recei...
The regulatory takings jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court has become an ungainly body, awkward for citizens and judges to apply and challenging as well, one might guess, for the Court itself, as it continues to reshape the law to better serve its aims. One cause of this predicament: leading decisions have arisen from peculiar facts and messy procedural contexts, yielding rulings that are hard to apply elsewhere. Another cause: the divergent views of Court members on the deference properly due the work of land use regulators.
There has been a great deal of federal-state conflict, termed the "Seaweed Rebellion," regarding the development of outer continental shelf (OCS) oil and gas resources. The crux of the conflict is that the benefits of OCS energy development are national, while the impacts are regional. One of the main issues of contention is the distribution and control of the revenues derived from OCS energy development. Presently, most of the revenues are deposited into the U.S. Treasury and utilized to pay for federal programs and deficit reduction.
Over the past 50 years, all 50 States and over 500 municipalities have enacted laws to encourage or require the preservation of buildings and areas with historic or aesthetic importance. These nationwide legislative efforts have been precipitated by two concerns. The first is recognition that, in recent years, large numbers of historic structures, landmarks, and areas have been destroyed without adequate consideration of either the values represented therein or the possibility of preserving the destroyed properties for use in economically productive ways.
The economic success of the United States over the past century has prompted observers around the world to look to it for lessons on stimulating growth. Compared with many countries, the United States is plainly doing something right in terms of fostering the energies of its people. One cause of U.S. success has been the fertile land of central North America, and no study can overlook that unearned natural blessing. Still, American culture and its many institutions have played chief roles in the nation's cornucopia.
Protecting healthy watersheds and restoring degraded ones is one of this country's major unmet environmental challenges. Because watersheds do not respect political boundaries, effective watershed conservation will require cooperation and coordination among all levels of government, including local units. Watershed conservation is one of the increasingly significant environmental protection roles local governments are playing for a variety of reasons, ranging from choice to coercion.