The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a lower court's issuance of a permanent injunction against further filling of wetlands adjacent to a 3,000-acre intrastate freshwater lake without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers under §404 of the Clean Water Act. The Corps' regulations impleme...

The court affirms a lower court's ruling that the Secretary of the Interior has no discretion to reject on environmental grounds applications for preference right coal mining leases by prospecting permittees who have fulfilled the requirements of §201(b) of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920. Section ...

In an oral opinion, the court upholds four municipal ordinances directed at regulating the noise level at the Santa Monica airport but overturns a ban against jet aircraft. The city of Santa Monica, owner and operator of the airport, enacted a night curfew at the airport, a weekend and holiday ban o...

The court denies plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction restraining the Secretary of the Interior from receiving or opening bids for outer continental shelf (OCS) oil and gas leases in the Georges Bank fishing region of the Atlantic Ocean. First addressing the question of immediate and irre...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirms judgments of two district courts dismissing suits brought by noncommercial users of the Colorado River challenging the formula by which the National Park Service (NPS) allocates use permits between commercial and noncommercial users. Specifically, appellant...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirms in part and reverses in part a decision by a district court, 6 ELR 20047, on appellees' suit for an order requiring the Bureau of Reclamation to obtain from the Secretary of the Army, pursuant to §10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, a permit for certain comp...

The court affirms the issuance of an injunction restraining certain Indian fishermen from commercial fishing in the Michigan waters of the Great Lakes except in compliance with the rules and regulations of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The trial court's findings establish conclusivel...

The court invalidates Interior Department regulations issued pursuant to the Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that prohibit the sale of parts of birds protected by the two statutes even though they were obtained prior to enactment of the statutes. Plaintiffs are dealers in Amer...

The United States Supreme Court reverses a lower court's decision, 9 ELR 20787, invalidating Interior Department regulations that prohibit the sale of parts of birds obtained before they came under the protection of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Eagle Protection Act. The Court rules that bot...

The New York Court of Appeals reverses a lower court's order which directed the state Commissioner of Environmental Conservation either to issue a permit under the state Freshwater Wetlands Act for the extraction of humus and sand from privately owned wetlands or to initiate condemnation proceedings...