The D.C. Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision rejecting an animal rights group's FOIA request for records concerning National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigations of animal abuse at a university research lab. NIH issued "Glomar" responses, meaning that the agency...

A district court largely upheld several administrative decisions made by federal agencies approving the construction of various aspects of an offshore wind energy project in Nantucket Sound, remanding only two issues to FWS and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for ESA violations. Four gr...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's CAA citizens suit against EPA for failing to make a finding that Idaho and Utah failed to timely submit SIPs for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). In 2007, EPA issued a rule that required states to submit their SIPs for PM2.5 within three years afte...

The Ninth Circuit, in a 170+ page opinion, reversed in part and affirmed in part a lower court decision invalidating the FWS' 2008 biological opinion (BiOp) that concluded that the Central Valley Project (CVP) would jeopardize the continued existence of the delta smelt and its habitat. The project s...

The D.C. Circuit denied an electric utility association's petition for review challenging EPA's new source performance standards for steam generating units. The standards—issued via final rules in 2009 and again in 2012—exempt all units using particulate matter continuous emissions monitoring sy...

A district court extended FWS' deadline to complete its biological opinion (BiOp) for the threatened delta smelt, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's deadline to complete its related analysis under NEPA, and NMFS' deadline to complete its BiOp and a related NEPA analysis for endangered salmonid species...