The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition challenging an NPDES permit authorizing oil and gas exploration facilities' discharge of 13 waste streams into the Beaufort Sea. The petition was filed by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, which represents Alaska Native villages tha...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' CWA citizen suit against EPA for failing to respond in writing to their administrative petition seeking withdrawal of West Virginia's NPDES permit program, but held that the groups may go forward with their claim that the Agency's failure to timely re...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE's) approval of oil spill response plans for an oil company's leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas on Alaska's Arctic coast. Several environmental groups claimed that BSEE's approval was arbitrary and capricious un...

The Tenth Circuit held the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not violate NEPA, the CWA, or nationwide permit (NWP) 12 when it allowed an energy company to build a 485-mile oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas under the general permit. The pipeline, part of a larger network of pipelines to transport oi...