Alaska
Akiachak Native Community v. United States Department of the Interior
The D.C. Circuit held that Alaska may not block any efforts by the United States to take tribal land into trust within Alaskan state borders. In 1971, the United States settled land claims staked by descendants of Alaskan aboriginal...
Aulukestai v. Alaska
The Supreme Court of Alaska held that the state's Department of Natural Resources should have provided public notice before issuing land and water use permits allowing intensive mineral exploration in the prospective Pebble Mine. The...
Alaska Conservation Foundation v. Pebble Ltd. Partnership
The Supreme Court of Alaska reversed a lower court decision that plaintiffs challenging land and water use permits allowing intensive mineral exploration in Alaska's prospective Pebble Mine had "sufficient economic incentive" to warrant...
Hughes v. Treadwell
The Supreme Court of Alaska upheld a ballot initiative that would require legislative approval of the any new large-scale metallic sulfide mining operation—the Pebble Mine gold and copper project—in the Bristol Bay watershed. Despite...
Asphalt Contractors, Inc. v. Alabama Department of Transportation
The Alabama Supreme Court held that a property owner may go forward with its inverse condemnation claim against the director of the state transportation agency for allowing contaminated water to be pumped onto the owner's land. Although...
Sullivan v. Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands
The Alaska Supreme Court held that neither the Alaska Constitution nor the Alaska Land Act require the state's natural resources agency to issue a written best interest finding at each step of an oil and gas development project. The Act...
Alaska v. United States Department of Agriculture
A district court dismissed as untimely Alaska's lawsuit challenging the 2001 roadless rule, which prohibits roadwork and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of national forest, including 14.7 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach...
Akiak Native Community v. Environmental Protection Agency
The Ninth Circuit held that EPA’s decision to transfer authority over portions of the NPDES program to the state of Alaska was not arbitrary or capricious. Petitioners argued that EPA did not adequately ensure that Alaska state law will...
Southeast Conference v. Vilsack
A district court granted the United States’ motion for summary judgment to find that certain timber harvesting provisions of a forest management plan did not violate the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) and the...
Pebble Ltd. Partnership v. Parnell
The Alaska Supreme Court held that a proposed clean water initiative relating to the regulation of large-scale metallic mineral mines was constitutionally and statutorily permissible and was qualified to appear on a statewide 2008...