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 issues a mandatoryinjunction against an oil company for extensive contamination of a river and surrounding land, but due to lack of evidence refuses to enjoin three other companies. The court first declines to invoke the doctrine of primary jurisdiction. The doctrine does not mandate blind...
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 holds that a company that allegedly sold the United States a lesser grade oil than required under contract specifications and then charged it for the higher grade oil is liable under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for violating oil management regulations. The court first...
The court holds that the Alaska mining commissioner permissibly nullified the mining rights acquired by a mining claims locator on state-selected federal lands. The court first holds that the commissioner did not err in finding that the locator was not qualified to conduct business in Alaska and, th...
The court reverses a district court summary judgment decision that ordered the owners of unpatented mill site claims in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona to remove themselves and all their things from the sites and to restore the sites to their natural condition. The government sought to evict th...
The court accepts and enters a consent decree between a citizen group and West Virginia's environmental agency that commits the agency to strengthen the application and oversight of the state's surface coal mining program authorized under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The g...
The court upheld in part and vacated in part U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations, known collectively as the Land Disposal Restrictions (LDR) Phase IV rule, addressing residual or secondary materials generated in mining and mineral proc...
The court denies a petition for review of a final determination by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to add 14 solvent wastes to its list of hazardous wastes under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The court first holds that EPA did not clearly err in interpr...
The court vacates a portion of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation in which it determined that oil-bearing wastewaters generated by the petroleum refining industry are solid wastes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), but upheld EPA's determination that recove...