A California court ordered a city to set aside its approval of a development project until it complies with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The environmental impact report for the project failed to summarize documents incorporated by reference in violation of CEQA guidelines. This f...

A district court dismissed a city's lawsuit against California state and local air districts challenging fees it must pay to mitigate wind-blown dust from a dry lake bed that exceed state and federal air standards. Section 42316 of the California Health and Safety Code authorized the district to ord...

A New York appellate court held that the state's Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML) does not preempt, either expressly or impliedly, a municipality's power to enact a local zoning ordinance banning all activities related to the exploration for, and the production or storage of, natural gas and...

A California court held that San Diego County's climate action plan violates the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and must be set aside. The plan should have been the subject of a supplemental environmental impact report (EIR) under CEQA instead of an addendum to the county's existing Pro...

A California appellate court upheld the denial of a fishing club's petition for a writ of mandate directing the California Fish and Game Commission to vacate its regulations that create Marine Protected Areas and Marine Managed Areas in state waters of an area of the Pacific Ocean known as the North...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision allowing a park district to go forward with its condemnation action to help complete a shoreline park and trail but ordering the district to prepare an environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The ...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court's grant of summary judgment in favor of DOI in water districts' lawsuit challenging the agency's management of California's Central Valley Project. The water districts argued that DOI should be ordered to provide the necessary drainage or, alternatively, to p...

The Alaska Supreme Court held that neither the Alaska Constitution nor the Alaska Land Act require the state's natural resources agency to issue a written best interest finding at each step of an oil and gas development project. The Act's best interest finding requirement is purely a creature of the...

A district court dismissed as untimely Alaska's lawsuit challenging the 2001 roadless rule, which prohibits roadwork and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of national forest, including 14.7 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in Alaska. Alaska's cause of action accrued in...

A district court held that individual ingredients of hydraulic fracturing formulas are trade secrets and do not need to be publicly disclosed. The Wyoming Public Records Act does not define trade secrets, but the Wyoming oil and gas commission's policy for evaluating trade secrets is reasonable and ...