The court upholds the U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI's) decision to deny lessors' request to cancel their Native American oil and gas lease because of the lessee's royalty underpayment violations. The court first holds that the lessors' constitutional argument is meritless. Instead of arguin...
The court grants a city's petition for review and reverses the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) order requiring the city to conduct a study of the effects of the Yelm Hydroelectric Project on the anadromous fish in the Nisqually River in Washington. The study would be used to determin...
Editors' Summary: In 1996, the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) made major changes in the law governing pesticide residues in food, including elimination of the zero-risk standard for carcinogenic food additives. The FQPA instead imposed a new safety standard—a reasonable certainty that no harm will result from aggregate exposure to the pesticide—for establishment of "tolerances" setting maximum allowable amounts of pesticide residue.
Editors' Summary: The debate about the most appropriate procedures and methodologies to conduct natural resource damage assessments (NRDAs) has continued throughout the last decade among agencies and stakeholders. In August 1995, NOAA proposed the most recent set of regulations to govern NRDAs under the Oil Pollution Act. This Article reviews the history of natural resource damages regulations and the 1995 NOAA proposed rule.
A district court denies property owners' motions to sanction the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for violating discovery orders in the owners' toxic-tort suit against DOE contractors that operate the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production facility. The court also denies, for the most part, the contr...
The court holds that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims improperly dismissed a city's breach of contract claims against the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) for lack of jurisdiction. The BPA was created to serve the Pacific Northwest's energy needs. If there is surplus energy, the BPA may sell it...