On November 23, the latest National Climate Assessment, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), was released by the U.S. Global Research Program, as required by the Clean Air Act. The Assessment, comprising three volumes and 1600 pages, contains some rather bleak findings which the Report usefully summarizes. Here’s a description of…
On November 27, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling vacating and remanding the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Weyerhaeuser Company v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Court of Appeals had affirmed the District Court’s ruling that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service…
On November 7, the Office of the Attorney General issued a Memorandum re: Principles and Procedures for Civil Consent Decrees and Settlement Agreements with State and Local Governmental Entities. This Memorandum is based largely on federalism concerns. It is anticipated that the policy on consent decrees with state and local governments is…
On October 30, in Sinnok, et al. v. State of Alaska, et al., the Superior Court, sitting in Anchorage, AK, granted the state’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ (a “group of Alaska youth ages 5 to 20”) complaints that the state has contributed to climate change through its actions with…
On September 30, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a ruling dismissing claims that the operation of a municipal waste landfill violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) provisions making actionable any “substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.” The case is Toxics…
On October 29, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) published a final rule in the Federal Register which amends and revises the environmental National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures rules employed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). There is a…
On October 30, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided the case of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co., LLC v. Permanent Easements for 2.14 Acres, et al. , affirming the District Court’s grant of a preliminary injunction to Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC (Transcontinental). This case involves…
On October 23, in another case that turned on the reviewing court’s authority to review an administrative action, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that the petitioners, having failed to raise their objections to a Biological Opinion the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relied on in their petition…
On October 18, in Landry’s, Inc. and Houston Aquarium, Inc. v. Animal Legal Defense Fund, et al., the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals, sitting in Houston, affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of a lawsuit alleging that the defendants, including the Animal Defense Fund, defamed the plaintiffs’ business with the publication of…
In another recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision, on October 1, 2018, the Fifth Circuit affirmed, in part, the District Court’s ruling that the general federal statute of limitations, 28 U.S.C. § 2462, required the dismissal of the government’s civil enforcement action in the case of U.S.,…