The court holds that the Secretary of Commerce abused his discretion and acted in contrivance of the law when he issued a finding that triggered a change in the dolphin-safe label standard for tuna sold in the United States. Through the International Dolphin Conservation Program Act (IDCPA), Congres...

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...

The D.C. Circuit upheld a final order issued by the Department of the Interior (DOI) requiring an energy company to retroactively recalculate royalties owed to the U.S. government under its lease to extract coalbed methane from federal land in Wyoming. In its disputed order, DOI held that the market...

The D.C. Circuit denied a petition to review the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC's) interpretation of the term "markets" as used in an amendment to the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act that created exceptions to a utility's mandatory purchase obligation to buy energy from qualifyi...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Tariff Act's antidumping duties on foreign merchandise sold in the United States at less than its fair value apply to imports of low enriched uranium obtained by domestic utilities in return for cash and unenriched uranium delivered to a foreign enricher. Section...

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...

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...

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...

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review of the NRC's refusal to include the threat of air attacks in its revised "design basis threat" rule, initially promulgated to protect nuclear power reactors from industrial sabotage. In March 2007, NRC revised the rule to increase the range of threats i...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision declining a water user association's request for a declaration that it has well-defined rights to develop power in the Diamond Fork System of the Central Utah Project and instead declaring that the association, the United States, and the local water ...