The Eighth Circuit upheld as moot a lower court decision denying a hunting club's motion to preliminarily enjoin a power company from constructing a 600-megawatt pulverized coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County, Arkansas, without first obtaining a prevention of significant deterioration permit ...

The D.C. Circuit held that a state agency lacked standing to challenge two Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders conditionally approving a company's application to site, construct, and operate a liquid natural gas terminal near the mouth of the Delaware River. FERC conditionally approve...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) decision to grant a state agency a new 50-year license to operate a hydroelectric facility near Niagara Falls. Several communities in western New York argued that FERC's licensing decision was arbitrary and capricious and un...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision that a city violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving a residential and commercial development project. The lower court properly ruled that the city violated the Planning and Zoning Law because the city's genera...

A district court held that the due care and discretionary function exceptions to the Federal Tort Claims Act do not shield the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from homeowners' lawsuit against it for damages stemming from flooding following Hurricane Katrina. Plaintiffs argued that the Corps failed to p...

The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision denying the trucking industry's motion to preliminarily enjoin two California ports from implementing "concession agreements" designed, among other things, to reduce diesel emissions from trucks servicing container facilities at the port...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that a Native American tribe is not entitled to damages under the Indian Tucker Act (ITA) for an asserted breach of fiduciary duty by the Secretary of the Interior in connection with his failure promptly to approve a royalty rate increase under a coal lease the tribe exec...

The Fourth Circuit reversed a lower court order vacating certain base flood elevation determinations adopted by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for Richland County, South Carolina. The lower court vacated the determinations because FEMA failed to timely publish notice of the determination...

The D.C. Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing dairy farmers' action challenging the constitutionality of two amendments to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act. The dairy farmers alleged that the amendments, which subjected certain large producer-handlers of milk to contribution re...

A district court upheld the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) decision to grant oil and gas drilling permits in south-central Wyoming. BLM's decisions were not arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise unlawful under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). BLM took the requisite hard look at envir...