The Ninth Circuit vacated a lower court decision that granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of California Penal Code §599f, which bans the slaughter and inhumane handling of nonambulatory animals, against federally regulated swine slaughterhouses. Plaintiff, a trade assoc...
A district court allowed negligence claims against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to continue in seven lawsuits stemming from a coal-ash spill, but it held that the TVA is not subject to punitive damages. Plaintiffs filed four class action complaints and four non-class action complaints seekin...
A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision that held that the California Regional Water Quality Control Board (Board) had no authority to enforce state law governing waste discharge to several hydroelectric dams operating under a federal license. The United States Supreme Court, fo...
A district court entered judgment for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with respect to environmental groups’ claims that the TVA violated the CAA and the Tennessee SIP in its operation of a fossil fuel-fired electricity generating facility. The groups argued that two projects, the economiz...
A California appellate court affirmed a lower court order clarifying and enforcing a prior decision, which had defined the rights of parties interested in the production of groundwater from the Seaside Basin, by restricting a water management district’s authority to require environmental revie...
A California appellate court affirmed a lower court’s issuance of a writ of mandate directing the city of Watsonville to, among other things, set aside its certification of a final environmental impact report (EIR) and its approval of a plan to develop a residential area in an area located adj...
In a case arising from a catastrophic oil spill in Buzzards Bay, a district court granted summary judgment in favor of the United States to find that aspects of the Massachusetts Oil Spill Prevention Act (MOSPA) were preempted by the federal Ports and Waterways Safety Act of 1972 (PWSA). The U.S. Co...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part a lower court decision related to the United States’ effort to recoup under the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Indian Tribes Water Rights Settlement Act of 1990 (Settlement Act) excess diversions of water that an irrigation district permitted over man...
The D.C. Circuit denied a petition to review FERC's approval of a construction project that would allow a natural gas importer to import greater quantities of liquefied natural gas and distribute it in gaseous form. The petitioner, a utility, argued that higher volumes of regasified liquefied natura...
The D.C. Circuit denied a petition to review FERC's approval of a construction project that would allow a natural gas importer to import greater quantities of liquefied natural gas and distribute it in gaseous form. The petitioner, a utility, argued that higher volumes of regasified liquefied natura...