The Tenth Circuit rejected environmental and citizens' groups challenge to a 2003 BLM resource management plan amendment allowing natural gas development in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. The groups alleged that BLM violated NEPA when it refused to study in detail their proposal to phase development ...

The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court injunction requiring the immediate installation of emissions controls at four TVA generating plants in Alabama and Tennessee. TVA is in compliance with the NAAQS, the corresponding SIPs, and the permits that implement them. Because these standar...

The D.C. Circuit denied environmental organizations' petitions for declaratory and injunctive relief arguing that the BLM's record of decision, accompanying EIS, and subsequent drilling permits for a natural gas field in south-central Wyoming violated NEPA, FLPMA, and the APA. The project was design...

The Eighth Circuit upheld a lower court decision dismissing on jurisdictional grounds environmental groups' claims that FEMA's approval of a levee violated the National Flood Insurance Act (NFIA) and the APA. In essence, the groups were challenging FEMA's flood elevation determination. Accordingly, ...

The Ninth Circuit dismissed environmental groups' claims against the U.S. Forest Service challenging revisions it made to regulations implementing the Forest Service Decisionmaking and Appeals Reform Act (ARA). The revisions limit the scope and availability of notice, comment, and appeals procedures...

A district court dismissed a hunting and fishing organization's NEPA and FLPMA claims against the BLM challenging its approval of oil and gas operations in the Pinedale Anticline natural gas field in western Wyoming. Claims that the BLM violated FLPMA were dismissed because the record supports the a...

The court holds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) guidelines for carrying out the certification of Waste Isolation Pilot Plant's (WIPP's) compliance with radioactive waste disposal regulations are specific enough to qualify as "criteria" under 40 C.F.R. Part 191. The court note...

The court holds that a D.C. Circuit ruling that the U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI's) decision to assess royalties on nonrecoupable take-or-pay payments was an arbitrary and capricious reading of DOI's own rules applies to an oil company that was assessed with such royalties, but not to a pe...

The court holds that an oil company must turn over to the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) documents that pertain to the arm's-length sales of oil it purchased from its subsidiary in non-arm's-length transactions. The subsidiary primarily produces oil from land within 32 federal leases, and the...

The court holds that the Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) decision to enter or extend power contracts with several direct service industries (DSIs) was not arbitrary and capricious as alleged by a coalition of consumers, public power associations, and environmental groups. The court first add...