The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court decision vacating a 2009 settlement agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and environmental groups that banned oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest pending the completion of a multi-year, forestwide EIS under NEPA. The lower court had pre...

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that insurers had no duty to defend or indemnify an oil refinery in an underlying CERCLA lawsuit filed against it by EPA. EPA sent the refinery a letter in 2001 notifying it that it was a PRP. Because EPA's allegations in the letter arguably fell wi...

The Ninth Circuit held that an insurance company breached its duty to defend a trucking equipment company when it refused to provide a defense after the company received letters from EPA notifying it of its potential liability under CERCLA for environmental contamination at the Portland Harbor Super...

The Third Circuit held that a PRP that entered into a consent decree resolving its state-law liability with the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in connection with contamination at an industrial facility may seek contribution under CERCLA from a second PRP. The court held that CERCLA §113(f)(3)(B) does...

The Third Circuit, in a case involving a contaminated site in New Jersey, affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision finding the former owner of the site liable to the current owner under CERCLA but not RCRA. The lower court ruled that the current owner's claim for injunctive relie...

A district court held that a cartage company that leased a parcel of land in the 1960s may be held liable for response costs the property owner incurred at the site under CERCLA as an operator, transporter, or arranger, but not as an owner. In its motion for partial summary judgment as to the compan...

The Seventh Circuit held that the trustees of a fund established to finance and oversee the cleanup of a contaminated site near Zionsville, Indiana, may go forward with their lawsuit under CERCLA to recover cleanup costs from the former owners of the site. To the extent that the trustees seek to rec...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision granting summary judgment in favor of homeowners and the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection in a CERCLA and RCRA case involving soil and groundwater contamination under a Las Vegas shopping center. The homeowners...