On rehearing en banc, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirms a lower court's decision denying plaintiffs' request for attorney fees on the basis of the Supreme Court's decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 5 ELR 20286. For the original panel opinion denying ...

Landowners who unsuccessfully applied for homestead entry on certain land seek to upset the Secretary of the Interior's prior classification of the land in question as "suitable for retention in federal ownership" and thus unavailable for homesteading under the Multiple Use Act of 1974, ELR 41408. P...

This action by a farm workers' organization sought to compel the Secretary of Labor to issue a permanent "field reentry" standard limiting farm worker exposure to pesticides under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). The Secretary did issue an "emergency temporary standard" in 1973, but to...

The General Services Administration is enjoined from taking any further action toward disposing of surplus government land to an electric utility company until an environmental impact statement meeting the requirements of NEPA has been prepared and circulated. Adopting the rational basis test to rev...

The court modifies its earlier opinion, 5 ELR 20046, to make clear that it did not rule on the propriety of the EPA Administrator's regulations implementing §§301 and 304 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, or on the validity of the form or content of any particular effl...

The court of appeals affirms a district court's judgment for defendants following a full trial on the merits of plaintiffs' contention that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development failed to comply with NEPA with respect to the siting of low-income public housing units in middle-class ne...

Section 1342(b) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 authorized Minnesota to require the Corps of Engineers to comply with state pollution abatement requirements, including obtaining a discharge permit for its dredging operations on the Mississippi River. Although plaintiff ...

In an action under §§10 and 13 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, the court refuses to require the defendant land developer to restore completely three acres of marshland destroyed by illegal canal construction and dredge spoil deposits. While massive destruction of wetlands can have serious a...

The defendant was convicted of theft of government property for cutting trees on his unpatented mining claim and using them to construct a residential cabin on adjacent private property (his patented claim), assertedly in violation of 30 U.S.C. §612(c), which prohibits cutting or removal of timber ...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a lower court's conviction of the defendant for failing to notify the appropriate governmental agency immediately about a known oil spill into a navigable river, as required by §311 of the Federal Walter Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. The statut...