UPDATE: When Attorneys General Attack II In When Attorneys General Attack, Pillsbury attorneys Sheila McCafferty Harvey, Joseph Jean, Carolina Fornos and Benjamin Tievsky discuss the New York State Office of the Attorney General’s and other jurisdictions’ power to aggressively scrutinize energy companies’ public statements on the subject of climate change. In…
On April 19, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in Wasatch Equality, et al., v. Alta Ski Lifts Company, et al., affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit claiming that the U.S. Forest Service, in routinely approving a permit to operate the Alta Ski area in…
In a “case of first impression,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting in Austin, in TCEQ v. Exxon Mobil Corporation, et al., issued an important decision interpreting the scope of the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act (TSWDA) as it pertains to judicial review of and the burden of…
The courts continue to be busy issuing significant Endangered Species Act (ESA) rulings. In the latest one, issued in early April, the U.S. District Court for Montana, Missoula Division, in Defenders of Wildlife v. Jewell, et al., vacated the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s withdrawal of its proposed listing of the North American…
On April 1, 2016, the Texas Supreme Court, in Houston Belt & Terminal Railroad Co., et al.. v. City of Houston, et al., reviewed the implementation of the City of Houston’s 2011 drainage fee ordinance. The petitioner railroad companies were assessed substantial new annual city drainage fees of $3 million by…
The Texas Constitution provides that “[n]o person’s property shall be taken, damaged or destroyed for or applied to public use without adequate compensation being made.” Tex. Const. art. I, § 17. The Texas Supreme Court has effectuated this constitutional imperative by requiring payment of the “market value” of condemned property, which it has determined…
Twice, courts have been called upon to interpret North Carolina’s 10-year statute of repose in connection with injuries allegedly stemming from the release of hazardous substances. CTS Corporation v. Waldburger involved CTS’s liability under CERCLA as the past owner of a manufacturing facility in North Carolina whose operations resulted in the release…
In mid-March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in National Parks Conservation Assoc., et al., v. McCarthy, approved the “Minnesota’s Regional Haze State Implementation Plan” (MRHSIP), rejecting the arguments opposing EPA’s approval filed by several environmental organizations. The conservation organizations challenged EPA’s approval of Minnesota’s decision to use the Transport…
Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court, in Sturgeon v. Frost, Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service, issued a unanimous ruling reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservations Act (ANILCA) that had the effect of subjecting the use of hovercrafts…
In early March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in Sierra Club v. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company, in a 2-to-1 decision, affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Sierra Club’s Clean Air Act (CAA) citizens suit against OG&E, concluding that their civil penalty and equitable relief claims are time-barred because Sierra Club’s…