A California appellate court held that an environmental group challenging proposed revisions to a solid waste facility permit for a local landfill is entitled to an administrative hearing before the county. The county denied the group's hearing request, reasoning that only operators, not third parti...
A district court dismissed the claims of the three remaining plaintiffs in a toxic tort case arising from the alleged release of radioactive and other hazardous substances from a uranium mill in New Mexico. The plaintiffs, current and former residents of neighborhoods adjacent to the mill, argued th...
The Supreme Court of California held that under some circumstances, an agency's agreement allowing private development, conditioned on future compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), constitutes approval of the project that must be preceded by the preparation of an environmen...
The Third Circuit held that a bankruptcy court properly allowed New York's claim for soil and groundwater contamination damages against a bankrupt gasoline distributor. New York obtained a default judgment against the distributor in state court after the distributor had filed for bankruptcy. The ban...
The Second Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court decision granting summary judgment in favor of a company for water pollution allegedly caused by a former subsidiary's operation of a factory in Bhopal, India. The district court, sua sponte, converted the defendants' motion to dismiss under Fed....
The First Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing a developer's equal protection claim against a town for intentionally obstructing a condominium real estate development project. The city ordered the developer to take certain remediation measures to control erosion and prevent damage to n...
A California appellate court ordered a local air pollution district to assess the public health impacts of a rule requiring large confined animal facilities to choose from a variety of mitigation measures with the goal of reducing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. The air district adopted t...
A California appellate court reversed a lower court order requiring a city to set aside its water supply assessment prepared in connection with its general plan for future development. The assessment need not analyze water demands and projected pumping by all others taking water from the same ground...
A California appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing a consumer advocacy group's enforcement action against an oil company under California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, commonly known as Proposition 65. The group claimed that the company knowingly an...
The D.C. Circuit reversed and remanded a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order allowing states to regulate the reimbursement of "headwater benefits" from downstream hydropower plants to upstream dam operators. To enable upstream firms to recoup part of the cost of conferring headwater be...