The court upholds the U.S. Forest Service's interpretation of the term "native" and its environmental assessment (EA) for an ecological project in Shawnee National Forest in Illinois. The appellants argued that the ecological project will have an adverse effect on shortleaf pines and pine warblers i...
The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service failed to comply with National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements in determining whether to allow a timber sale in the Payette National Forest in Idaho. The court first holds that the Forest Service fail...
The court holds that contribution bars in Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) settlements not involving the United States or a state government are valid. The court first approves a corporation's settlements with a group of settling parties. The agreements ...
The court holds that a band of Native Americans has the right to moor commercial fishing vessels at two municipally owned marinas on Lake Michigan. The court first holds that treaties signed in 1836 and 1855 provided for an easement of access to reach traditional fishing grounds, which includes the ...
The court dismisses a property owner's Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), and state common-law claims against prior owners of the property and a state agency for r...
The Court holds that the Fifth Circuit lacked jurisdiction over a suit to set aside a 1982 settlement agreement that quieted title to lands on Horn Island, Mississippi, in U.S. favor. After concluding that the Quiet Title Act conferred jurisdiction, the Fifth Circuit, relying on a 1781 Spanish land ...
For trial lawyers and judges, the U.S. Supreme Court's "Daubert Four"—four unanimous decisions since 1993, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,1 General Electric Co. v. Joiner,2 Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael,3 and Weisgram v.
In recent years, lawmakers of all sorts have become interested in scientific peer review, and have the hope that scrutiny by independent experts can improve the quality of their own decisionmaking. As the phrase implies, peer review refers to the process of having work scrutinized by fellow experts, and it has long served as a quality control mechanism for the scientific community.
If a value system is simply presupposed and obeyed as the given structure of the world that all are made to accept and serve, it can become systematically destructive without our knowing there is a moral choice involved.1
An important battle is currently taking place over the future direction of environmental enforcement in the United States. The conflict is in part between businesses and government; more fundamentally, however, it is between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states. EPA's vision of effective enforcement is one grounded in deterrence, the theory that generally underlies societal efforts to control unlawful behavior. Many states, by contrast, have been shifting to a more conciliatory, cooperation-oriented approach.