A district court held that a manufacturing company is entitled to $1.7 million in litigation costs from its insurer in an underlying 2003 lawsuit concerning hazardous waste contamination at one of the company's properties stemming from the 1950s. The insurer alleged that the property damage occurred...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that the Hawaii Pesticides Law impliedly preempts a county ordinance that seeks to regulate pesticides and genetically engineered plants. The ordinance would have required commercial farmers to maintain “buffer zones” between crops to which pesti...

The Federal Claims Court held that DOE owes an energy company nearly $34.5 million in damages for failing to perform its contractual obligations to remove spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear power plant in New York. The court granted all of the company's claims except for the Part 171 NRC fees, the re...

The Federal Claims Court held that DOE owes an energy company $13.8 million in damages for failing to perform its contractual obligations to remove spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear power plant in Covert, Michigan. The court found in favor of the the company with respect to its claims for costs rela...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional portions of a 2012 law governing oil and gas operations in the Marcellus Shale. This is the second time the law, known as Act 13, has been reviewed by the court: in 2013, the court struck down provisions that limited the zoning powers of...

The Supreme Court of California held that the state's moratorium on the use of suction dredges to mine gold from rivers was not preempted by federal mining law. The case arose after an individual challenged his conviction for the possession and unpermitted use of a suction dredge. He argued that the...

The Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court decision that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must bear all the costs of deauthorizing the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), instead holding that the Corps' cost-sharing formula with the state of Louisiana was reasonable. The Corps has completed buildin...

The Supreme Court of California held that the state may enter and conduct environmental and geological studies and testing on more than 150 privately owned properties in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that the state might seek to acquire for construction of two new tunnels to deliver fresh water f...

The Fifth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, directed the Louisiana Supreme Court to define the meaning of "good faith" as it pertains to an underlying whistleblower suit. A deckhand working for a tugboat company alleged he was repeatedly ordered to dump oil and otherwise violate environmental laws...