Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley
The California Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that a developer's proposal to demolish an existing home and build a 10,000 square-foot single-family home on the lot may not be categorically exempt from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). After th...
Landmark Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
A district court denied a conservative nonprofit advocacy group's motion for spoliation sanctions against EPA for its mishandling of the group's FOIA request, but nevertheless scolded the Agency for its conduct. Because the record does not support a finding of punitive spoliation sanctions, the cour...
Tesoro Alaska Co. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm'n
The D.C. Circuit upheld FERC's approval of a cost-pooling agreement among Trans Alaska Pipeline System oil carriers that allocates most fixed costs on the basis of each carrier's share of combined interstate and intrastate utilization of the 800-mile pipeline. Two carriers that only ship oil within ...
California Dump Truck Owners Ass'n v. Nichols
The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a trucking association's federal preemption challenge to a California environmental regulation on diesel trucks. The regulation requires heavy-duty diesel trucks, whose emissions contribute significantly to particulate matter and ozone pollution, to be upgra...
CREED-21 v. City of San Diego
A California appellate court ordered the dismissal of an environmental group's California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit against a city in connection with emergency storm drain repair and revegetation projects. Following a storm drain failure in 2009 that caused significant erosion along a...