The Ninth Circuit remanded a lower court's award of enhanced attorney fees in favor of an environmental group that sued the U.S. Navy for violating certain environmental laws in connection with its use of mid-frequency active sonar in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. The group used attorneys...

A district court denied a railroad's motion to bring the state of Montana into an environmental contamination lawsuit between private property owners and the railroad. The state is immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. The state has not consented to involvement in this action and, in fact, ...

A district court ordered the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to install and continuously operate scrubbers at four power plants in Tennessee and Alabama. North Carolina filed a public nuisance claim against TVA, citing urgent environmental concerns due to air pollution emitted by TVA's coal-fired p...

A district court granted a motion to bar a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator's deposition in a cost recovery action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act in connection with the General Color site in New Jersey. Under United Stat...

The D.C. Circuit denied an individual's request for attorney fees and expenses under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) despite having won her lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) concerning the mute swan. In that case, the court held that the DOI's exclusion of the mute swan fr...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that environmental groups lack standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations exempting certain land management activities from the agency's review process absent a live dispute over the concrete application of those regulations. The regulations exempt small fire-r...

The Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing commercial fishermen's takings claim against the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) for prohibiting commercial fishing on waters surrounding the Palmyra National Wildlife Refuge. The fishermen argued they were entitled to compensation...

The Ninth Circuit temporarily stayed the expansion of a phosphate mine located near the Idaho-Wyoming border. Environmental groups filed a motion to preliminarily enjoin the project, arguing that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management violated the National Environmental Policy Act...

A Minnesota appellate court upheld a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency rule governing phosphorus effluent discharges into state waters. A coalition of cities argued that because the rule provides that a discharger "may" rather than "shall" qualify for an exemption if it demonstrates that it can mee...

The Federal Circuit reversed a lower court's dismissal of a property owner's claim for just compensation after the FWS required mitigation in connection with its sale of property to the U.S. Navy. A property owner sought to sell some of its land to the U.S. Navy. But because the FWS deemed the site ...