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...

A California appellate court denied a petition challenging a county board's approval of a coastal permit to construct a single-family home within the county's 100-foot riparian corridor setback. The board did not abuse its discretion in approving the permits for the project, allowing the development...

Massachusetts' highest court affirmed a lower court decision upholding a state environmental commissioner' conclusion that a proposed wind farm project complied with the state's Wetlands Protection Act. The project will require certain streams to be bridged using open footed culverts. These culverts...

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a lower court decision that an insurer had no duty to defend or indemnify a school board in a toxic tort suit. In the underlying case, the school board was being sued for building a school on land once used as a landfill and allowing housing developments to be built near ...

The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court injunction requiring the immediate installation of emissions controls at four TVA generating plants in Alabama and Tennessee. TVA is in compliance with the NAAQS, the corresponding SIPs, and the permits that implement them. Because these standar...

The Fifth Circuit held that an insurance company had no obligations to a lead refinery under four environmental impairment liability policies that the insurance company's predecessor in interest had sold to the refinery years earlier. The policies contained an "other insurance" clause that deprived ...

The D.C. Circuit denied environmental organizations' petitions for declaratory and injunctive relief arguing that the BLM's record of decision, accompanying EIS, and subsequent drilling permits for a natural gas field in south-central Wyoming violated NEPA, FLPMA, and the APA. The project was design...

The Tenth Circuit reversed a lower court's dismissal of a False Claims Act action brought against a government contractor by one of its former employees alleging that the contractor falsely represented to the government that it had fulfilled its hazardous and radioactive waste disposal obligations a...