The Ninth Circuit dismissed individuals' appeal from a judgment for defendants in a case claiming that they violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act in adopting a National Park Service (NPS) program to restore and protect Santa Cruz Island by, in pa...
The D.C. Circuit upheld the U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI's) interpretation of "valid existing rights" in a 1999 rule to foreclose surface mining operations in sensitive areas. A mining association argued that Congress inserted "valid existing rights" in the Surface Mining Control and Recla...
The D.C. Circuit held that a consumer group lacks standing to challenge a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) safety standard requiring a warning system for underinflated tires. The group alleged that some of its members will suffer car accidents in the future that otherwise would...
The D.C. Circuit held that a lower court improperly dismissed individuals' National Environmental Policy Act and National Historic Preservation Act claims against the Secretary of the Army and developers in connection with the closure and redevelopment of Fort Ritchie, a former U.S. Army base in wes...
The Fifth Circuit dismissed as moot an environmental group's Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit against a city for violating its separate storm sewer system permit. The lower court dismissed the case on grounds that it was barred by res judicata. But because a consent decree in a prior U.S. Environm...
The Tenth Circuit held that the Federal Mineral Leasing Act (FMLA) does not provide political subdivisions of a state an implied cause of action to challenge the state's allocation of federal mineral royalties received under the Act. FMLA §191 directs the federal government to return 50% of fed...
The Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court order giving an aluminum company more time to build a power plant than originally agreed to in a consent decree that resolved alleged Clean Air Act violations at the company's manufacturing plant. After the company failed to meet the decree's deadline for comme...
The Ninth Circuit held that Native American tribes lacked standing to enforce a consent decree entered into by a mining company and the federal government for Resource Conservation and Recovery Act violations at the company's phosphorous plant located on land within a tribal reservation. In addition...
The Ninth Circuit held that a Canadian corporation that markets and distributes electric power in the United States is a "foreign state" within the meaning of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 and, therefore, is entitled to a federal bench trial in a case alleging it had "manipulated the ...
A district court held that neither a coalition of agricultural water users nor a recreational water user has standing to challenge the state's striped bass fishing regulations under the Endangered Species Act. The plaintiffs argued that the regulations cause the unlawful take of species listed under...