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...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed as moot the U.S. Department of the Interior's appeal of a district court order that remanded for further rulemaking and temporarily suspended the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) "no surprises rule." The government arg...

The court held that a district court erred in dismissing environmental groups' suit challenging the issuance of a permit to construct a power plant near Yellowstone National Park for lack of standing. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality issued the permit after the U.S. Department of the ...

The court holds that the Tucker Act's statute of limitations does not bar a development company's claim that U.S. Marine Corps munitions-handling operations at Blount Island, Florida, resulted in a temporary taking of the company's property without just compensation. The statute of limitations began...