South Carolina's highest court held that the state's environmental agency violated state law when it negotiated an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Ports Authority before issuing a CWA §401 water quality certificate for a proposed expansion project for Savannah Harbor...
A Texas appellate court held that sovereign immunity bars an individual's lawsuit against the board members of a local reclamation district claiming that their activities caused a lake to be substantially drained during 2008 and for most of the years 2009 through 2011. As a governmental agency and p...
A California appellate court held that a water control board order that regulates waste from existing milk cow dairies violates the state's antidegradation policy. The order prohibits the further degradation of groundwater, as is required by the state’s antidegradation policy, but it does not proh...
A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision prohibiting the inclusion of styrene and vinyl acetate as possible carcinogens on the state's Proposition 65 list. The Proposition 65 list is limited to chemicals for which it has been determined, either by the Office of Environmental Heal...
A California appellate court held that a city council may not skip California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for a development project by using Election Code §9214(a) to approve the project via a voter petition instead of holding an election under §9214(b). When a development project is a...
An Indiana appeals court reversed the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission's approval of a purchase and sales agreement for "substitute natural gas" an energy company plans to produce at its new coal gasification plant. The contract meets the common law definition of an enforceable contract. It als...
A district court held that the CAA preempts individuals' tort law action against a coal-fired power plant for property damage stemming from the plant's air emissions. In essence, the individuals' complaint attacks the plant's air emissions and asks the court to regulate them. But the CAA provides a ...
A California appellate court held that a city's certification of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a development project covering 2,600 acres of undeveloped land for single-family dwelling units and a village center violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Below, the trial co...
New York's highest court held that the New York City School Construction Authority's EIS for the construction of a campus of four public schools in an area formerly used as a railroad yard violated the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Because the site contains significant soil and gro...
A California appellate court held that a local ballot measure requiring a city to seek competitive bidding for future trash service contracts was not a "project" under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) subject to environmental review. A city resident alleged that the city violated CEQA...