The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision remanding to state court residents' class action lawsuit against a mining company for property contamination stemming from the company's mining operations. The residents originally filed the suit in state court, but the company removed the case to fe...

The First Circuit upheld the dismissal of a Native American tribe's claim challenging the Bureau of Indian Affair's (BIA's) decision to allow a plot of tribal land to be leased for the construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas facility. The tribe argued that the BIA's decision violated t...

The Tenth Circuit held that a proposed intervener may not establish standing, and thus federal court jurisdiction over its motion to intervene, by "piggybacking" on the standing of an existing party to a lawsuit over which the district court has retained jurisdiction but within which there is no cur...

The Ninth Circuit held that animal rights organizations lacked standing to challenge a USDA notice stating that "there is no specific federal humane handling and slaughter statute for poultry." The lower court entered summary judgment in favor of the USDA, holding that while the plain meaning of the...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying a mining company's motion to expand a preliminary injunction and enjoin asbestos claims against the state of Montana arising from the company's mining operations. The company filed for Chapter 11 under the Bankruptcy Code in 2001. The same da...

A district court remanded to state court a city's CWA and state law claims against another city challenging its imposition of a 25% surcharge on wastewater treatment services. The plaintiff city seeks a declaration that the surcharge violates the CWA. Although the plaintiff city referred to the fede...

The Fifth Circuit vacates an earlier ruling in which a panel reversed a lower court decision dismissing Mississippi residents' class action lawsuit against several energy, fossil fuel, and chemical companies for their alleged contribution to climate change. When the court first granted rehearing en ...

A district court dismissed, on grounds of abstention, an environmental group's RCRA and CWA citizen suit against a company seeking remediation of contaminated sediments in the Raritan River located adjacent to a site formerly owned by the company. The complaint asks the court to enter an injunction ...

The Sixth Circuit dismissed as moot the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (Corps') appeal of an injunction requiring it to accept contaminated material dredged from a waterbody connected to the Detroit River. A settlement agreement between Michigan and the city of Detroit required the city to dredge and...

The First Circuit held that neither the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) nor the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) waive U.S. sovereign immunity in a property owner's suit to recover monetary damages for its cleanup of past oil contamination on a former U.S. Navy base. RCRA contains no exp...