The court holds that a local air quality management district is immune from a rancher's negligence claim against it for miscalculating the amount of marketable pollution credits the ranch earned for reducing agricultural burning. The district mistakenly issued the ranch 470 tons of credits more than...

The court affirms, but on different grounds, a lower court decision invalidating a local ordinance prohibiting new mining activities in a town. The lower court erred in invalidating the local law based on the town's failure to comply with the state law's notice requirements. Because the local mining...

The court holds that a solid waste flow control requirement imposed by a 22-county waste authority in Mississippi violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The authority required waste haulers to deliver collected materials to a designated publicly owned facility. The ruling in United H...

The court affirms the dismissal of a property owner's appeal of a town wetlands commission's grant of a wetlands and watercourse permit for the construction of a subdivision on land adjacent to that of the property owner. The property owner misconstrued Connecticut General Statutes §22a-41(a)(2...

The court affirms a trial court ruling that 760 pages of documents that a steel mill had previously provided to Colorado's state environmental agency constitutes "emission data" that could be disclosed to a union intervening in a state enforcement action against the steel mill. The Colorado Air Poll...

The court reverses a jury verdict awarding damages to the employee of a contractor who sued the railroad for injuries caused when a drum of spent signal batteries exploded during the contractor's disposal of the batteries. The employee sought to recover from the railroad under the peculiar risk doct...

The court vacates and remands a district court order under the All Writs Act requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) to accept dredged material in order to prevent the frustration of a consent decree between a city and the state of Michigan addressing water pollution problems around t...

The court held that a defective jury charge denied agricultural operators the protection of the Texas Right to Farm Act's affirmative defense against claims that agricultural operations are a nuisance. The Act provides that no nuisance action may be brought against an agricultural operation that has...

The court affirms a district court holding that the Clean Air Act (CAA) does not preempt California's ban of the use of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in oxygenated fuel. CAA §211(c)(4)(A) preempts state regulation of fuel for purposes of motor vehicle emissions, but California is exempt fr...

The court holds that a local coastal erosion board's issuance of a positive declaration under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) requiring oceanfront property owners to conduct a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in connection with their proposal to install erosion ...