The court holds ripe for adjudication an oil company's action for a declaratory judgment that the estate of its predecessor's deceased owner is liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to the extent of the oil company's liability, for a hazardou...

The court refuses to issue a writ of mandamus overturning a district court refusal to order the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to initiate enforcement action against hazardous waste generators for shipping material to petitioner hazardous waste treatment company, which lacks a Resour...

The court holds that environmental groups lack standing to challenge the U.S. Treasury Department's failure to prepare an environmental impact statement for its authorization of an alternative fuel additive tax credit. The groups claimed that the tax credit would encourage production of an ethanol-d...

The court holds that timber companies, a trade association, and a county lack constitutional and prudential standing to challenge the U.S. Forest Service's interim guidelines on managing spotted owl habitat in California's western Sierra Nevada national forests. Plaintiffs alleged that the guideline...

The court holds that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) does not require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to consider the master plan for an airport's expansion in an environmental assessment (EA) of the upgrade of one runway. The court first holds that the issue is not moot, even...

The court holds that New Jersey's self-sufficiency policy, whose goal is to eliminate the use of out-of-state disposal facilities by the year 2000, violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The state implemented the policy by either rejecting long-term out-of-state disposal contracts, i...

The court directs a district court to enjoin South Dakota state officials from relitigating in state court issues that the federal circuit court has already decided concerning the permitting of a solid waste disposal facility. In SDDS, Inc. v. South Dakota, 25 ELR 20967 (1995), the circuit court eff...

The court holds that an electric utility company lacks standing under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to challenge a U.S. Forest Service environmental impact statement approving a competing company's construction of a crude oil pipeline. The court first holds that the evidence clearly s...

The court upholds Nevada county ordinances requiring landowners either to subscribe to a particular garbage collection service or to haul their garbage to an approved disposal site every seven days. The ordinances also required all landowners that cannot prove that they properly disposed of their ow...

The court reverses a district court opinion that the stare decisis effect of a decision by a federal district court in Washington State bars appellants' current challenge to the president's 1994 forest plan. The court holds that stare decisis does not require a district court in one circuit to follo...