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 Fifth Circuit held that notices of violations EPA sent to two power plant operators for alleged CAA violations were not "final agency action" and, hence, not subject to judicial review. In the notices, EPA claimed that the operators violated the Act's PSD provisions in connection with certain ph...

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...

The Supreme Court of Texas held that an oil and gas company may use a road on landowner's property to access its underground mineral rights. The company held an interest oil and gas rights under the landowners' property in addition to several adjoining tracts. In 2000, it pooled the tracts, thereby ...

The D.C. Circuit held that environmental groups lacked standing to challenge an EPA memo issued to regional directors in response to an earlier court decision vacating the Agency's 2011 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (the "transport rule"), which sets sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions lim...

The Supreme Court of Alaska upheld a ballot initiative that would require legislative approval of the any new large-scale metallic sulfide mining operation—the Pebble Mine gold and copper project—in the Bristol Bay watershed. Despite mining associations' arguments to the contrary, the "Bristol B...