A district court held that an environmental group may seek injunctive relief and civil penalties against a mining company previously held liable for the unpermitted discharge of selenium into U.S. waters even though the company has since obtained new permits allowing such discharges. The company arg...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's determination that Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP 12) applied to the discharge of dredged and fill material in Alabama's Big Creek Lake watershed in connection with a larger pipeline construction pro...

A district court denied a mining company's motion for partial judgment in a case filed against it for alleged CWA and SMCRA violations. Environmental groups alleged that the mine violated narrative water quality standards and, therefore, the CWA and the SMCRA, by discharging excessive amounts of ion...

The D.C. Circuit upheld an NRC order transferring regulatory authority over decommissioning activities at a former aluminum production plant to the state of New Jersey under the Atomic Energy Act. New Jersey’s regulatory regime is adequate and compatible with the NRC’s regulatory program. And de...

A district court granted summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on all but one claim in a lawsuit filed against the agency challenging its decision in 2013 to make certain "flow augmentation releases" (FARs) of water from a dam located in the Trinity River Division of the Centra...

A Colorado court held that a voter-approved local ban on hydraulic fracturing cannot apply retroactively to ban oil and gas operations that a city approved in a prior agreement. The city entered into a memorandum of understanding in August 2013 allowing a company to engage oil and gas exploration an...

A district court dismissed Nebraska's lawsuit challenging EPA's proposed standards to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new or modified fossil fuel-fired electric utility generating units. As part of the proposed rule, EPA found that certain technology was "adequately demonstrated" for purposes of...

A Louisiana court held that the state erred in issuing a coastal use permit to a natural gas storage and transport company that was needed to create two new natural gas storage caverns in the Jefferson Island salt dome underneath Lake Peigneur. The state's natural resource department violated the st...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit challenging EPA's initiation of CWA §404(c) proceedings for the proposed Pebble Mine project, a large copper and gold mine in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska. Alaska, which owns the land, as well as the company that owns the underlying mineral ri...

A district court upheld EPA's revocation of a CWA §404 permit allowing a mining company to discharge fill material from its West Virginia mountaintop coal mine into two nearby streams. EPA withdrew the permit's designation of the streams as disposal sites after determining that the discharges would...