A district court held that OSM violated NEPA when it approved a mining plan amendment that would expand a coal mine in Montana, and ordered the agency to prepare an updated EA within 240 days. Specifically, the court held that OSM violated NEPA's public participation and notice provisions when it fa...

A district court ordered NMFS to take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts of its definition of "fishery" with regard to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish fishery management plan (FMP) and whether river herring and shad should be included in the FMP. In 2014, the Mid-Atlantic Fisher...

A district court, in a 126-page opinion, dismissed environmental groups' NEPA lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Highway Administration in connection with a proposed six-lane, 50-mile highway project north of Birmingham, Alabam...

A district court held that USDA's Wildlife Services failed to comply with NEPA with respect to gray wolf management in Washington. The agency entered into a cooperative service agreement with Washington's wildlife agency to help implement the state's Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, particular...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that BLM complied with NEPA and FLPMA in allowing the construction of a utility-scale wind project in California's Sonoran Desert. BLM sufficiently evaluated and disclosed the environmental impacts of the wind energy facility project under NEPA. Envi...

A district court dismissed several claims a group of cattle ranchers filed against USDA and DOI concerning actions taken to protect the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, an endangered species. Following the listing of the species in 2014, the U.S. Forest Service proposed to erect a five-foot pipe fen...

A New York appellate court held that residents may go forward with their personal injury and property damage claims against a city and various companies for failing to properly remediate toxic contamination at the Love Canal Superfund site and for allowing toxins to be released during a 2011 sewer p...

A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service did not violate NEPA or the APA when it reissued a 30-year special use permit allowing an energy company to continue operating a portion of a 1,100-mile pipeline through the Huron-Manistee National Forest. Built in 1953, the pipeline transports crud...

A district court, on motions for summary judgment, held that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) complied with NEPA and other statutes when it approved a tribe's application for a proposed gaming facility and hotel fee-to-trust acquisition project in Yuma, California. BIA prepared an EIS for the prop...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the dismissal of an environmental group's NEPA and CWA claims against the U.S. government in connection with a 593-mile oil pipeline that runs from Illinois to Oklahoma on both public and private lands. Despite the group's claims to the contrary, the government was not requir...