The court upholds a bankruptcy court's settlement approval over the disposition of certain rights to harvested methane gas. Under the settlement, the bankrupt party—a company that collects methane gas from landfills—was released from its obligation to finish the gas collection system and was to ...

The court dismisses a petition for review challenging a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule implementing critical use exemptions for methyl bromide, a pesticide with significant ozone-depleting potential. The petitioner argued that EPA violated consensus decisions of the parties to the M...

The court removes the New York Superfund disposal tax—Environmental Conservation Law §27-0923(2)—from its statutory financing scheme for the cleanup of inactive hazardous waste disposal sites. The courts below have already held, and the state does not contest, that the disposal tax unlawfully d...

The court reverses the dismissal of the Louisiana Fish & Game Preserve Commission's takings claim against the United States in a case involving a conflict between the state commission's duty to maintain the Northwest Fish and Game Preserve and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (the Corps') respo...

The court grants a local water authority's motion to intervene in a case brought by environmental groups challenging the validity of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's biological opinion concerning the coordinated operation of the federally managed Central Valley Project (CVP) and California's Sta...

The court vacates the dismissal of dairy farmers' claims that their cows and farmland were poisoned by defendant's factory emissions over several decades. Because there is a material issue of fact as to whether the farmers exercised reasonable diligence in determining the cause of their cows' sympto...

The court affirms the dismissal of individuals' state-law counterclaims against a gasoline company that was suing them under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for contamination at a service station. A ...

The court denies a railway company's petition for review of a Surface Transportation Board order rejecting as unreasonable certain rates the railroad charged to a company to ship coal. The board issued its ruling three-and-one-half years after a complaint was filed. Because 49 U.S.C. §11701(c) prov...

The court vacates and remands a lower court decision upholding a state university's approval of an environmental impact report prepared in connection with plans to expand its campus on a former army base. Although the university agrees to mitigate effects occurring on the campus itself, it disclaims...

The court vacates an individual's sentence for illegally dredging North Carolina's Croatan Sound during a bridge construction project and remands the case for resentencing. The district court misapplied U.S. Sentencing Guideline §5K2.20 when it granted the individual a downward departure for aberra...