The Court holds that an environmental group's challenge to a U.S. Forest Service land and resource management plan (LRMP) for Wayne National Forest in Ohio is not yet ripe for review. The environmental group brought suit alleging that the Forest Service's approval of the Wayne National Forest LRMP v...
The court holds that owners of property atop South Mountain in Washington County, Maryland, were not entitled to an increase in the amount awarded them in a condemnation proceeding. The property owners contend that the district court erred in granting the U.S. government's motion in limine seeking t...
The court holds that a greenhouse's geothermal resources ownership claim is time barred by the Quiet Title Act's (the Act's) 12-year statute of limitations. The court first holds that the Quiet Title Act provides the greenhouse's exclusive remedy. The greenhouse may characterize its lawsuit as a dec...
The court affirms the denial of landowners' untimely demand for a jury trial on the issue of just compensation in a condemnation proceeding initiated by the United States. The United States was attempting to obtain 42 acres of the landowners' property for the purposes of administering, preserving, a...
The court holds that a district court lacked jurisdiction to hear a former Superfund site operator's four state-law claims against the site's owner. After entering a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the site operator brought a six-count complaint against the site owner. ...
The court holds that a district court abused its discretion by abstaining from a case in which landowners challenge, on federal due process and equal protection grounds, a New York land use law restricting development on Long Island. The court first holds that the case did not require abstention on ...
If we want to think about changes in local sustainability over the last 10 years, perhaps the best place to start is with Al Gore. In 1992, just before the Rio Earth Summit and before he was to be tapped as a vice presidential candidate, then-Senator Gore published a treatise on the environment called Earth in the Balance.
Editors' Summary: In recent years, vindication of private-property rights has been the rallying cry of various citizen groups and politicians who believe that certain regulatory restrictions—especially environmental protection measures—have "gone too far" and that the Fifth Amendment is an insufficient safeguard of private-property rights.
On June 29, 2001, the last day of the October 2000 term, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider "whether the [Ninth Circuit] Court of Appeals properly determined that a temporary moratorium on land development does not constitute a taking of property requiring compensation under the Takings Clause of the [U.S.] Constitution?" The case, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, provides the Court with an opportunity to clarify its opinions in First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v.
Editors' Summary: This past summer, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 118 S. Ct. 1665, 28 ELR 21119 (1998). The Court held that an environmental group's challenge to a U.S. Forest Service land and resource management plan for the Wayne National Forest in Ohio was not ripe for review. This Article examines how this decision affects the rules for judicial review of national forest plans.