The U.S. Supreme Court held that a district court abused its discretion in enjoining the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) from effecting a partial deregulation of Roundup Ready Alfalfa (RRA), a variety of alfalfa genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide Roundup, and in proh...

The Tenth Circuit rejected environmental and citizens' groups challenge to a 2003 BLM resource management plan amendment allowing natural gas development in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. The groups alleged that BLM violated NEPA when it refused to study in detail their proposal to phase development ...

An Indiana appellate court held that the economic loss doctrine does not preclude a property owner from pursuing negligence claims against a company that previously operated a manufacturing site on adjacent property. If a plaintiff is not seeking damages involving the benefit of the bargain or other...

The Florida Supreme Court held that commercial fishermen can recover for economic losses caused by the negligent release of pollutants even if they do not own any property damaged by that pollution. The case arose after waste from a fertilizer company entered a pond, resulting in a loss of underwate...

A district court granted an offshore service company's motion to enjoin the federal government's six-month general moratorium on deepwater drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The company established a likelihood of successfully showing that the federal government acted arbitrarily and capricious...

The Tenth Circuit held that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) applies a strict liability standard to the taking or killing of migratory birds but that it requires a defendant to proximately cause the statute's violation for the statute to pass constitutional muster. The case arose when two oil dr...

A California appellate court held that a siting agreement between a county and the state corrections department that identified potential locations for a state prison reentry facility is not subject to environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The agreement was not ...

The Second Circuit held that the USDA complied with NEPA and the Plant Protection Act when it adopted new regulations for the importation of solid wood packaging material into the United States. The final rule required that all solid wood packaging material be either heat treated to a minimum wood c...

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that an insurance company must defend a manufacturing company in an underlying contamination case even though the company's policy was a indemnity-only excess umbrella policy. Based on the language of the policy, the insurer had a duty to defend. Although the excess ...

The Fifth Circuit refused to reinstate the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In June, a district court granted an offshore service company's motion to enjoin the moratorium. The DOI sought a stay of that injunction, but it failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irrepar...