The court holds that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) acted within the scope of its discretion in issuing a regulation that established a rebuttable presumption that loose closures on railroad tank cars transporting hazardous materials result from the shipper's failure to conduct a proper...

The court affirms in part and reverses in part a district court decision holding that certain beneficiaries to the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact (the Compact) had a right to sue Nebraska for acts delaying the construction of the Compact's disposal facility and that the state...

The Ninth Circuit held that the subcellular alteration of a plaintiff's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), without pain or interference with bodily functions, is not a bodily injury within the meaning of the Price-Anderson Act. The Price-Anderson Act prohibits recovery for plaintiffs who have not suffered...

The Court of Federal Claims awarded $84 million to four oil companies for costs they incurred cleaning up waste stemming from the production of aviation gasoline during World War II under contracts with the U.S. government. The government argued that the oil companies are not entitled to recover all...

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court order holding that a company substantially complied with a state's remediation plan for cleaning up PCB contamination at a hazardous waste site. The company's predecessor-in-interest operated an electrical transformer repair facility on the subject property,...

In denying a petition for review, the Tenth Circuit held that the NRC did not violate the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) or NEPA when it issued a license to a company to conduct in situ leach mining for uranium on four sites in northwest New Mexico. In issuing the license, NRC interpreted its regulations t...

A district court denied New Jersey's motion to amend a 1997 consent decree concerning the Gloucester Environmental Management Services, Inc., landfill and ordered it to comply with the terms of the decree. The state alleged that the detection of the presence of radionuclides requires a new remedy fo...

The court upholds the dismissal of individuals' employment retaliation suits against the state of Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management concerning potential Solid Waste Disposal Act violations. The state has not waived its right to sovereign immunity, and the U.S. ...

A district court denied motions for summary judgment brought by the current or former owners of underground petroleum storage tanks who were sued under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) by the owner of neighboring property. The underground storage tank (UST) owners argued that ground...

A district ruled on several pre-trial motions of both defendants and plaintiffs alleging property damage caused by a defendant's contamination at its nearby chemical manufacturing facility (a designated Superfund site), negligence, fraud, fraudulent concealment, strict liability, trespass, and civil...