The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service's (the Service's) environmental impact statement (EIS) and record of decision (ROD) for a mining operation on and around Buckhorn Mountain in California did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), or Nati...

The court affirms the dismissal of a community association's motion for a preliminary injunction to halt the construction of a 4-lane, 77-mile highway around Nashville, Tennessee. Although the highway has been exclusively funded by the state, the association argued that the federal government failed...

The court denies petitions to review the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) decisions to categorically exclude the closure of a Missouri city's airport from the National Environmental Policy Act's (NEPA's) environmental assessment (EA) requirement and to release the city's federal obligation ...

The court denies environmental groups' petitions to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) decision not to bring an enforcement action against a city for violating the terms of an operating license for a hydroelectric project on the Cowlitz River in Washington. In 1967, the city ...

The court holds that an electric utility company that was a 70% owner of a nuclear power plant in Iowa can deduct 15 years' worth of Energy Policy Act (EPACT) assessments in the tax year that the liability was determined. In 1992, Congress enacted the EPACT, which established a fund for the decontam...

The court dismisses a mining association's action challenging U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) regulations concerning the use of a computerized database programmed to identify links between surface mining permit violators and applicants, individuals, and corporations. The association argued tha...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court order enjoining the future planting of disputed genetically engineered alfalfa seed pending the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's completion of an enivironmental impact statement. The district court applied the traditional balancing test, and no...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that the U.S. Coast Guard (Coast Guard) did not violate appellants' First Amendment rights or the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it established safety zones insulating a private "super ferry" in Hawaii from blockade by local protesters...

The Eighth Circuit denied a petition for review of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order authorizing the reconstruction of the Taum Sauk Pumped Storage Project, a hydroelectric generating plant in the Missouri Ozarks. In 2005, the upper reservoir of the project collapsed, and the opera...

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...