A district court granted in part and denied in part the motion of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to dismiss a mine operator’s action relating to the MSHA’s use of a citation quota, which allegedly caused mine inspectors to issue baseless citations to the operator. As a ...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a corporate officer’s conviction under RCRA relating to the illegal storage of hazardous waste. The officer argued that the United States could charge and obtain a conviction against the corporation or him, but not both. The court disagreed. Both the corporation and ...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to hold that the Forest Service’s approval of a project to update grazing allotments in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest did not comply with the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and NEPA. Under the forest p...

A district court granted in part and denied in part the United States' motion to dismiss citizen groups’ claims challenging the approval of certain quarterly oil and gas lease sales under, among other things, the APA, FLPMA, the Mineral Lands Leasing Act (MLLA), the National Forest Management ...

The D.C. Circuit denied industry groups’ petition for review of a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) decision to enforce a final exposure limit standard for exposure of miners in metal and non-metal underground mines to diesel particulate matter (DPM) in diesel exhaust. This decision...

A district court entered judgment for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with respect to environmental groups’ claims that the TVA violated the CAA and the Tennessee SIP in its operation of a fossil fuel-fired electricity generating facility. The groups argued that two projects, the economiz...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part a lower court decision related to the United States’ effort to recoup under the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Indian Tribes Water Rights Settlement Act of 1990 (Settlement Act) excess diversions of water that an irrigation district permitted over man...

The D.C. Circuit denied a petition to review FERC's approval of a construction project that would allow a natural gas importer to import greater quantities of liquefied natural gas and distribute it in gaseous form. The petitioner, a utility, argued that higher volumes of regasified liquefied natura...

The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not act arbitrarily, capriciously, or contrary to law when it granted Nevada's request to split one of its clean air areas into two. Contrary to an environmental group's claim, the presence and operation of a mine in the ...

A district court held that the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA's) supplemental environmental assessment (EA) and revised finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for a proposed casino on Native American land held in trust by the United States complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)...