A district court halted the expansion of a Montana coal mine approved by the Surface Mining Enforcement Office for violations of NEPA. In 2008, a coal company requested approval of a mine expansion in the Bull Mountains to extract coal owned by the federal government. In 2011, BLM prepared an EA to ...
The Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling denying business owners’ motion to preliminary enjoin the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, from proceeding with construction of a rapid transit bus system due to alleged NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) violations. The business o...
The D.C. Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, denied an environmental group's petition for review challenging FERC's approval of a proposed liquefied natural gas project in Texas. The group argued that FERC violated NEPA in its consideration of the projects’ indirect and cumulative effects. But as ...
The Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court decision denying environmental group's request to preliminarily enjoin the drilling of certain oil and gas wells in the Mancos Shale formation of the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. The groups filed a lawsuit under NEPA challenging 260 drilling permits in the Man...
A district court held that BLM violated NEPA when it issued a FONSI in connection with an energy company's application to drill 16 new gas wells at its natural gas plant in northeastern Utah. Environmental groups alleged that BLM violated NEPA by failing to take a “hard look” at the environmenta...
A district court upheld the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' and FWS' management plan, EIS, and associated permits authorizing the “take,” or killing, of double-crested cormorants in the Columbia River estuary, even though the agencies failed to consider reasonable alternatives other than killing i...
A district court held that BLM failed to take a "hard look" at the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing with regard to the agency's resource management plan (RMP) for public lands in California's central region. Under the resource management plan, 25% of new wells are expected to use hydraul...
A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service violated NEPA, the Wilderness Act, and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) in connection with its decision to allow drilling, road reconstruction, and the use of motorized vehicles and heavy equipment at the Golden Hand Mine in the Frank Churc...
The Fourth Circuit upheld the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of a dredge and fill permit to a surface coal mine. Environmental groups challenged the adequacy of the Corps' environmental review, arguing that the Corps violated NEPA and the CWA by failing to consider evidence that surface coal...