The D.C. Circuit held that Alaska may not block any efforts by the United States to take tribal land into trust within Alaskan state borders. In 1971, the United States settled land claims staked by descendants of Alaskan aboriginal tribes. DOI interpreted that settlement as barring it from taking l...
The Ninth Circuit held that Washington state's management of barrier culverts, which allow streams to flow underneath roads, violated various Native American treaties from the 1850s and ordered the state to correct them. The "Stevens Treaties" were entered into in 1854-1855 between Native American t...
A district court ordered EPA to impose a "good neighbor” federal implementation plan (FIP) for Texas with respect to the 1997 fine particulate matter (PM2.5) NAAQS. In 2015, the D.C. Circuit invalidated portions of EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which included a FIP addressing interstate tr...
A district court held that West Virginia law preempts a county's ban on wastewater disposal wells. The ordinance effectively outlaws horizontal drilling anywhere in the county. It establishes a general, countywide ban on all storage of wastewater except for temporary storage of wastewater at drillin...
A district court dismissed on summary judgment environmental groups' lawsuit against a mining company for alleged SIP violations as it relates to NAAQS for coarse particular matter (PM10). Under the Utah SIP's "material moved" provision for PM10, total material moved (ore and waste) may not exceed 1...
The Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a steel company's CAA citizen lawsuit seeking injunctive relief to stop a competitor from constructing or continuing to construct a steel mill. Arkansas's environmental agency already issued the competitor a preconstruction PSD permit. Ne...
The Sixth Circuit upheld a lower court decision sentencing an individual to 60 months in prison and ordered the individual and his co-defendants, jointly and severally, to pay $10,388,576.71 in restitution to EPA for asbestos NESHAPS violations. The individual and co-defendants formed a salvage comp...
The Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court decision that imposed no penalties against an oil company for alleged CAA permit violations at its industrial complex in Baytown, Texas. An environmental group filed a CAA citizen suit against the company, alleging violations that occurred thousan...
The Texas Supreme Court held that the common-law "accommodation doctrine," which gives an oil-and-gas lessee an implied right to use the land as reasonably necessary to produce and remove the minerals as long as it exercises that right with due regard for the landowner's rights, also extends to grou...