Annual Review of Chinese Environmental Law Developments: 2010
In 2010, China continued its environmental development goals outlined in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan passed in 2006. This annual review surveys the major developments in Chinese environmental law and policy in the past year. The Article covers developments in international environmental law, water and soil conservation, and other law and policy developments in environmental protection in China in the past year.
Kansas Gas & Electric Co. v. United States
The Federal Claims court ordered DOE to pay three utility companies $10,632,454.83 for failing to collect spent nuclear fuel from the Wolf Creek Generating Station in Kansas in violation of their contract. The utilities' damages derive from their investigation of alternative spent nuclear fu...
United States v. General Electric Co.
A district court held that CERCLA's statute of limitations does not bar the United States from recovering certain costs it incurred in 1993 and 1995 responding to soil and ground water contamination at the Fletcher Paint Works and Storage Facility Superfund site in Milford, New Hampshire. Af...
Carijano v. Occidental Petroleum Corp.
The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing a Peruvian Achuar indigenous group's lawsuit against an oil company for environmental contamination and the release of hazardous wastes. The complaint alleges that, during its 30 years in the Achuar territories, the oil company kno...
National Association of Home Builders v. San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District
The Ninth Circuit held that the CAA does not preempt a California air pollution district rule requiring development sites to reduce the amount of pollutants they emit. CAA §209(e)(1) only preempts those standards or requirements relating to the control of emissions from "new" construction e...
Nelson v. Kern
A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision denying a petition challenging the adequacy of a county's environmental analysis of a proposed surface mining operation on a 40-acre site in the foothills of the Southern Sierra Nevada mountain range. The county limited its environ...
Friends of the Juana Briones House v. City of Palo Alto
A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision ordering a city to set aside its approval of a permit to demolish an historic building and to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) before considering reissuance of the permit. CEQA does not apply to the demol...