The court holds that although it has jurisdiction to hear an individual's claim for damages against a city for disrupting his construction project, the individual's due process rights were not violated. The individual was granted the necessary permits to begin preparing the site for the construction...

The court holds that federal sovereign immunity bars an action initiated by the commonwealth of Puerto Rico's environmental agency in an effort to impose restrictions on the U.S. Navy's extraction of waters from a river. During World War II, the Navy obtained a permit from the commonwealth to extrac...

The court holds that an environmental group's claim that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and a state military department violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to prepare an environmental assessment (EA) in connection with plans to build a military center is not ripe. ...

The court holds that the owner of a retail development lacked standing to bring Federal-Aid Highway Act (FAHA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) actions against the Secretary of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) for failing to prevent a county from approving the...

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 county ordinance provisions directing solid waste to designated in-state facilities do not discriminate against interstate commerce; however, provisions that prevent the delivery of waste to out-of-state processors violate the U.S. Commerce Clause. The court first holds that the...

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 a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation that creates a 12-month grace period exempting transportation projects in nonattainment and maintenance areas from Clean Air Act (CAA) §176(c) is contrary to the plain meaning of the CAA. The court first holds that an envi...

The court holds that the issue of whether a six-year statute of limitations for actions brought by the United States applies to Minerals Management Service (MMS) administrative orders to pay oil and gas royalties is moot. The MMS issued an order on May 17, 1994, finding that an oil company's predece...

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...