Reversing the lower court decision, 4 ELR 20559, the Ninth Circuit holds that the mineral reservation in patents issued under the Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 includes the right to produce geothermal steam. Owners and lessees of public lands, beneath which are sources of geothermal steam, sou...

The D.C. Circuit affirms the district court's dismissal, 407 F. Supp. 257 (D.D.C. 1976), for lack of standing to sue, of plaintiff's claim that the National Petroleum Council violates the balanced membership provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C. App. I, ELR 41019. The Cou...

The Army Corps of Engineers' power to require permits for construction in navigable waters under §§9 and 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 extends to Smith Mountain Lake, an artificial impoundment on the Roanoke River. The history of actual use of the river at Smith Mountain prior to the im...

The court finds an additional coal-fired generating unit at a municipal power plant to be a new stationary source subject to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations setting standards of performance for such sources under §306 of the Clean Air Act. The Act provides that the standards apply...

After a trial on the merits, the court enjoins further activities pursuant to leases sold by the Department of the Interior in August 1976 for exploration and production of oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the Baltimore Canyon area off New Jersey and declares the leases null and v...

The Seventh Circuit vacates and remands a suit seeking to enjoin construction of a highway segment that had been dismissed because defendants had withdrawn the application for federal funding. The record reveals that the segment and the larger bypass project of which it is a part have an extensive h...

The court dismisses a petition for review of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrative law judge's dismissal of petitioners as parties to a permit proceeding under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) Amendments. Petitioners intervened in the adjudicatory proceeding concerni...

The government may properly prosecute willful discharge of gasoline under the criminal provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA). Witnesses noticed defendant activating machinery that pumped 200-300 gallons of gasoline into Lake St. Clair, a navigable waterway. The evidence suppo...

The court upholds the constitutionality of a New York statute requiring removal without compensation of billboards in Catskill Park. Plaintiff owns 96 signs, most of which are located within 660 feet of federally aided highways passing through Catskill Park, and all of which are ineligible for permi...

The court denies defendants' motion to dismiss this National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) challenge to the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project as barred by laches or for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Laches is not judicially favored as a defense in environ...