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 11-month period between the publication of a new statutory fee for unpatented mining claims and the compliance deadline afforded a claim holder a reasonable opportunity to comply with the deadline, and, thus, did not violate his procedural due process rights. Pursuant to the ...

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...

The court holds that the owners of royalty interests in federal oil and gas leases are not entitled to royalty payments from their lessee. During ongoing title disputes over mineral patent rights between the federal government and several private parties, the lessee acquired both federal and private...

The court upholds an injunction requiring an ore processing plant owner to provide the U.S. Forest Service with access to the area surrounding his mill and precluding further operations until the Forest Service approves a new operating plant. The court first holds that the district court did not err...

The court remands a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision holding that a natural gas company's legal costs incurred in defending alleged environmental violations could not be included in its rate base used to calculate its permissible charges. The court first holds that FERC has not m...