A California appellate court upheld the California Department of Water Resources' (DWR's) method for crediting State Water Project (SWP) water recipients with revenues from hydropower generated at the Oroville Dam. DWR purchases the hydropower for use within the SWP, but some of it is pooled with ot...
A Michigan appellate court held that Michigan's Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act does not preempt a local ordinance requiring all septic tank waste collected from within a township to be taken to a specific treatment facility. Although the state legislature enacted a comprehensive ...
A California appellate court upheld a lower court decision preliminarily enjoining a county from enforcing a voter-approved ballot measure banning the use of agricultural fertilizer made from recycled municipal sewage sludge in unincorporated areas of the county. The application of this fertilizer, ...
The D.C. Circuit held that NRC's transfer of authority to New Jersey over nuclear materials within the state was arbitrary and capricious. The NRC may transfer regulatory authority over classes of nuclear materials located within a state to the government of that state. But here, the agency failed t...
The Texas Supreme Court held that the Texas Clean Air Act (TCAA) preempts a city ordinance prohibiting a company from moving its concrete-crushing operations to a new location. The TCAA provides that a municipal ordinance may not prohibit any acts approved or authorized by the Texas Commission on En...
A California appellate court upheld a county's approval of a sand and gravel mining pit along a riverbed. An environmental group seeking to overturn the approval argued that the environmental impact report (EIR) that formed the basis of the county's decision violated the California Environmental Qua...
A district court dismissed a nonprofit group's lawsuit seeking to halt EPA studies that expose humans to fine particulate matter. The challenged EPA conduct does not constitute final agency action. EPA's alleged failure to comply with an agency rule does not constitute "agency action". And even if i...
The Louisiana Supreme Court held that a school district may seek remediation damages in excess of those required by state law from oil companies who engaged in oil exploration and production operations on school land. The district sought two types of damages: damages required under state law pursuan...
A California court rejected a challenge to the emissions offset component of California's greenhouse gas (GHG) cap-and-trade program promulgated by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Under the program, all offsets must be additional, meaning tha...
A North Carolina court held that the state's environmental agency has the authority to require an egg farm to obtain a NPDES permit to prevent airborne pollutants from reaching state waters. The egg farm does not make any direct discharges into state waters, but ammonia and other pollutants may ente...