The First Circuit, in a case of first impression, vacated a lower court decision that it should abstain from hearing a RCRA citizen suit concerning the cleanup of contamination caused by leaking USTs at a former gasoline filling station in Puerto Rico. The pendency of parallel state administ...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision denying a petition challenging the adequacy of a county's environmental analysis of a proposed surface mining operation on a 40-acre site in the foothills of the Southern Sierra Nevada mountain range. The county limited its environ...

A district court dismissed a motion to dismiss environmental groups' citizen suit against five coal companies alleging thousands of violations of the CWA and SMCRA in West Virginia. Because EPA entered into a consent decree with the companies, the defendants argued that the groups' CWA claim...

The Fifth Circuit held that a pollution exclusion clause contained in an oil well operator's insurance policy bars coverage for cleanup costs of an oil leak on leased land. The operator argued that the exclusion did not apply because the operator leased only mineral rights and that the surfa...

The Fifth Circuit held that a "farmout agreement," under which the owner of a federal offshore oil and gas lease transferred its rights to drill to another drilling operator, does not require the operator to bear a proportionate share of the costs of decommissioning an oil platform at the le...

A district court denied a defendant company's motion to dismiss a distribution center's claim for injunctive relief and damages under various causes of action based on environmental contamination on property managed by the defendant. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that the company is not meetin...

The D.C. Circuit set aside an order of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission denying a mining company's application for temporary relief from restrictions that the Mine Safety and Health Administration imposed on it in conjunction with its investigation of an explosion at one of its m...

A district court held that the owners of contaminated property may be held liable under RCRA for obstructing the former owner's ability to clean up the site. After purchasing the property from a power company, the owners filed suit against the power company under RCRA. The company then filed...

A district court denied a property owner's motion to add RCRA claims to its CERCLA and state law action against a dry cleaner for groundwater contamination. The property owner failed to comply with RCRA's notice requirements. The boilerplate and conclusory RCRA notices provided by the owner fai...

A district court dismissed a mining industry association's action challenging DOI Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) regulations allocating the burden of proof in five types of administrative proceedings under SMCRA. The association argued that the regulations impermissibly shift the ultimate...