The court upholds a Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) regulation exempting some mines from prime farmland reclamation requirements of §510(d), but invalidates a regulation setting a termination date for the exemption. First, the court considers the regulation limiting exemptions to...

The Ninth Circuit, reversing the district court, 13 ELR 20269, holds that the standing and ripeness doctrines bar appellee's challenge to the Department of the Interior's (DOI's) recommendation that California redesignate Death Valley National Monument from a Class II to a Class I air quality region...

The court upholds three of four actions by the Secretary of the Interior approving or disapproving portions of Pennsylvania's application for surface mining regulation primacy under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The court first notes that SMCRA authorizes the Secretary to a...

The court rules that the Secretary of Transportation complied with §4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in selecting an alternative for a segment of the National Freeway through a state forest in Maryland. Under §4(f), the Secretary's choic...

The court upholds a determination by the Department of Housing and Urban Devolopment (HUD) that the financing of a 111-unit housing project is not a major federal action requiring preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The court ho...

The Fourth Circuit affirms the district court's ruling, 12 ELR 20336, that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had acted within its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act in approving the dumping of polycholorinated biphenyls at a state landfill next to appellants' land. The district...

The court approves a settlement agreement resolving litigation over Clean Air Act implementation plans governing airborne lead pollution. The parties agree that as of July 30, 1982, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), by failing to approve, disapprove, or promulgate lead plans for 29 states a...

The court permanently enjoins the construction of a six-mile road and the implementation of a timber harvest plan in the Blue Creek Roadless Area of the Six Rivers National Forest for violations of the First Amendment, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Wilderness Act, the Federal Wat...

The court rules that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) approval of a revision to the Illinois state implementation plan (SIP) allowing increased emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) from a power plant without consideration of the impacts on air quality in New York does not violate the Clean...

The court holds that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision not to include strip mines on a promulgated list of source categories, whose fugitive emissions would be taken into account in determining whether individual sources were "major" for the purposes of new source review under t...