The court held that a 2002 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule specifying that Nevada was divided into more than 250 baseline areas for the Clean Air Act (CAA) prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) program was not arbitrary or capricious. Based on an ambiguous 1991 EPA regulation...

The court dismisses on ripeness grounds U.S. and Native American tribes' request to clarify the nature and scope of tribal water rights in Oregon’s Klamath Basin and to assess the water rights standard set forth in a state administrative adjudication. Prior litigation in this dispute establishe...

The court upholds the dismissal of a property owner's inverse condemnation action against the state of Rhode Island for acquiring a portion of his property in 1975 by adverse possession. Because the owner failed to seek compensation through the state court, he forfeited his federal claim. Adequate s...

The court affirms a district court decision that New York Air Pollution Mitigation Law §66-k is preempted by the Clean Air Act (CAA) Title IV cap-and-trade system and violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Section 66-k requires the assessment of an air pollution mitigation offs...

The court refuses to reinstate a contempt order against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) penalizing the agency $500,000 a day if it did not comply with a separate order requiring the Corps to lower water flow levels in the Missouri River. The judicial panel on multidistrict litigation tr...

The court holds that an electric utility violated the Clean Air Act (CAA) when it completed 11 construction activities that modified a coal-fired electric-generating facility without first calculating post-construction emissions and obtaining preconstruction CAA prevention of significant deteriorati...

The court holds that §21 of Article XVII to the South Dakota Constitution, which prohibits corporations or syndicates from acquiring or obtaining an interest in land used for farming and from otherwise engaging in farming in South Dakota, violates the dormant U.S. Commerce Clause of the U.S. Co...

The court holds that a local transportation control measure, adopted as part of California's state implementation plan to attain federal air quality standards in the San Francisco Bay Area, does not impose an enforceable obligation on the local transportation commission to increase public transit ri...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that certain aspects of local fleet rules do not escape preemption under CAA §209(a) simply because they address the purchase of vehicles rather than their manufacture or sale. The fleet rules prohibit the purchase or lease of vehicles by fleet operators that do not ...

The Sixth Circuit upheld EPA's redesignation of Cleveland, Ohio, from nonattainment to attainment for particulate matter under CAA §107(d)(3)(E). An environmental group argued that EPA illegally waived statutory requirements when it redesignated the area to attainment by not fully approving the...