A Washington State appellate court held that a county ordinance banning the land application of the most common class of biosolids is unconstitutional. The state' s biosolids program was created in 1992 to facilitate and encourage recycling, rather than disposal, of sewage waste, and the state's env...

A California appellate court held that San Diego County's adoption of a climate action plan violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Pursuant to the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, the county issued a program environmental impact report (PEIR) and adopted a number o...

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed military families' claims against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act for various health problems due to their alleged exposure to toxic substances in the drinking water while living at a military base in North Carolina. The North Carolina statute of repos...

A Colorado court held that a voter-approved local ban on hydraulic fracturing cannot apply retroactively to ban oil and gas operations that a city approved in a prior agreement. The city entered into a memorandum of understanding in August 2013 allowing a company to engage oil and gas exploration an...

A district court dismissed Nebraska's lawsuit challenging EPA's proposed standards to limit carbon dioxide emissions from new or modified fossil fuel-fired electric utility generating units. As part of the proposed rule, EPA found that certain technology was "adequately demonstrated" for purposes of...

A Louisiana court held that the state erred in issuing a coastal use permit to a natural gas storage and transport company that was needed to create two new natural gas storage caverns in the Jefferson Island salt dome underneath Lake Peigneur. The state's natural resource department violated the st...

A district court upheld DOI's decision to withdraw more than one million acres of federal land adjacent to the Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining. The withdrawal will close these lands to the exploration and development of uranium mining claims for 20 years, although mining of a few exis...

The Ohio Supreme Court held that a mineral rights owner may be able to strip mine portions of a state wildlife area. The state and the mineral rights owner entered a contract granting the owner “all mineral rights, including rights of ingress and egress and reasonable surface right privileges.” ...

A district court issued a final order vacating BLM's and the U.S. Forest Service's approval of on-the-ground mining exploration activities in a part of western Colorado's North Fork Valley. The court previously held that the agencies violated NEPA when it approved the projects and enjoined interveni...

The Third Circuit struck down New Jersey's Long Term Capacity Pilot Program Act, which was enacted in 2011 to encourage the construction of new power plants within the state. The program, known as "LCAPP", would add a cumulative 2,000 megawatts of capacity to the regional power grid from which New J...