A Colorado court struck down a city's ban on hydraulic fracturing. In 2012, voters passed an amendment to the city charter that bans fracking and the storage and disposal of fracking waste within city limits. The oil and gas industry challenged the ban, arguing that it was preempted. The court agree...

A Pennsylvania court severed in part and struck down in part certain provisions of Act 13, pertaining to oil and gas operations in the Marcellus Shale, that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court left undisturbed in its December 2013 decision invalidating portions of the law on constitutional grounds. On re...

A California appellate court held that interim renewal contracts concerning BLM's ongoing provision of Central Valley Project water to California water districts are exempt from environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The purpose of the interim renewal contracts w...

The Iowa Supreme Court held that a solar energy company is not a public utility under state law. The case arose after a city sought to enter into a prospective purchaser agreement with the company to supply a portion of the city's electricity needs at certain city premises. On the company's petition...

The D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's gasification exclusion rule, which exempts from RCRA certain hazardous residuals left over from the petroleum refining process. Under the exclusion, oil-bearing hazardous secondary materials that are otherwise hazardous wastes under RCRA §3001 are exempted from RCRA r...

The D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's comparable fuels exclusion, which exempts all fuels deemed comparable to non-hazardous waste-derived fossil fuels from the requirements set forth in RCRA §3004(q). Section 3004(q) directs EPA to establish standards applicable to all facilities that produce, burn for e...

A district court held that a doctor lacks standing to challenge a Pennsylvania law that prohibits doctors from disclosing the mixture of chemical fluids used during hydraulic fracturing when treating patients for chemical exposure. Doctors have a professional and ethical obligation to communicate cr...

New York's highest court held that local governments may ban oil and gas production activities, including hydraulic fracturing, through the adoption of local zoning laws. The case arose after two towns enacted zoning laws banning hydraulic fracturing within their jurisdictions. A private gas company...

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld ballot initiatives that would expand local governments' authority to enact laws regulating oil and gas development that are more restrictive than state law. The initiatives contain just one subject, and the titles fairly reflect the purpose of the initiatives and ar...

The Supreme Court of Utah dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging the state's issuance of a discharge permit for a tar sands bitumen-extraction project in the Uintah Basin. The original discharge permit was granted by the Utah Division of Water Quality (DWQ) in 2008. In 2011, the Utah...