The D.C. Circuit denied an electric utility association's petition for review challenging EPA's new source performance standards for steam generating units. The standards—issued via final rules in 2009 and again in 2012—exempt all units using particulate matter continuous emissions monitoring sy...

The Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a lawsuit filed by 11 Louisiana parishes in which they sought penalties under the Louisiana Wildlife Protection Statute for the pollution-related loss of aquatic life and wildlife following the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the ...

The Washington Supreme Court upheld the state environmental agency's determination that an EIS was not necessary for a proposed biomass cogeneration project at a kraft pulp and paper mill. An environmental group argued that by not preparing an EIS, the agency failed to adequately consider the effect...

A district court granted in part and denied in part motions to dismiss an environmental group's citizen suit against a utility company for alleged CAA violations at a coal-fired power plant in Muskogee, Oklahoma. The group alleged that the company failed to obtain a prevention of significant deterio...

Massachusetts' highest court upheld the state's "priority habitat" regulations insofar as they allow the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to designate priority habitat without affording landowners the procedural protections statutorily due to those owning property within "significant...

A Michigan appellate court held that Mich. Admin. Rule 324.102(x), which defines the term “injection well,” does not include wells completed using hydraulic fracturing. Accordingly, "frack" wells are not subject to the environmental regulations applicable to injection wells. For a well to be cat...

A district court held that a Nebraska law passed in 2012 to expedite the approval of a new route for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline through the state is unconstitutional. Article IV, §20, of the Nebraska Constitution commits exclusively to the Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) the au...

A district court rejected a group of mid-Atlantic states' claims that projects undertaken by an energy company at three of its coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania violated the CAA's prevention of significant deterioration and new source performance standards requirements. The states sought an in...