A California appellate court upheld a comprehensive municipal storm sewer permit governing 19 local public entities. A building association argued that water quality standards provisions in the permit require strict compliance with state water quality standards beyond what is "practicable" and there...

A California appellate court reversed a trial court decision and granted a neigborhood group's petition seeking the preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act for a residential project. The trial court erred in ruling that the issues tendered b...

The U.S. Supreme Court adopted all of a Special Master's recommendations in a dispute between Colorado and Kansas concerning the division of waters in the upper Arkansas River. The Special Master's First Report found that Colorado unlawfully depleted the river in violation of the Arkansas River Comp...

A California appellate court held that environmental impact reports (EIRs) prepared for two retail shopping center projects violated the California Environmental Quality Act. The EIRs do not fulfill their informational obligations because they failed to consider the projects' individual and cumulati...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a district court decision staying a Nevada State Engineer's ruling granting the U.S. and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians' applications to make temporary changes to two water rights set forth in the Orr Ditch Decree, a 1944 federal court decree quieting title to cert...

The Federal Circuit affirms a lower court decision finding property owners' takings claim against the National Marine Fisheries Service unripe. The owners sought to harvest redwood trees on their property. After learning that the cost of an incidental take permit (ITP) under the Endangered Species A...

The Federal Claims Court holds that landowners are not entitled to just compensation under the Fifth Amendment in their action against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) for requiring them to set aside a portion of their property as mitigation wetlands in exchange for a §404 permit to...

The D.C. Circuit affirms the dismissal of Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) claims brought against the U.S. government for burying dangerous munitions and toxic chemicals on property in Washington, D.C., during World War I, failing to issue warnings about the buried munitions and chemicals and the resu...

The Seventh Circuit held that the state of Illinois would be violating the U.S. Constitution if it confiscated any part of a clean energy foundation's assets. After the state legislature passed an authorizing statute, the foundation was created out of the profits from a private company's sale of sev...

The Fifth Circuit reversed a district court's denial of a motion to compel attendance and produce documents and its quashing of a subpoena directed to a non-party witness in a class action suit alleging that oil companies cooperated with and assisted the Nigerian military in the brutal repression of...