Case Summaries
Environmental Law
Environmental Law
[02/03]
Pacific Rivers Council v. US Forest Service
In a suit challenging Forest Service amendments to the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan as inconsistent with the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act, the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Forest Service is: 1) reversed in part, where the plaintiff had Article III standing, and the failure of the environmental impact statement (EIS) to provide any analysis of the environmental consequences on individual fish species was a failure to comply with the hard look requirement of NEPA; and 2) affirmed in part, insofar as the Forest Service did take a hard look at environmental consequences on amphibians in the EIS, in compliance with NEPA.
[01/26]
Chevron Corp. v. Naranjo
In a case in which a potential judgment-debtor sought a global anti-enforcement injunction against defendants from the Lago Agrio region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, prohibiting them from attempting to enforce an allegedly fraudulent judgment entered by an Ecuadorian court, the district court's grant of the injunction is reversed with orders to dismiss the claim, where the district court erred in construing New York’s Uniform Foreign Country Money-Judgments Recognition Act to grant the putative judgment-debtors a cause of action to challenge foreign judgments before enforcement of those judgments was sought.
[01/20]
Sierra Club v. EPA
On petition brought by several environmental groups for review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the 2004 State Implementation Plan (SIP) for the San Joaquin Valley’s nonattainment area for the one-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard, the petition is granted with remand where the agency’s action in approving the challenged SIP in 2010 based on data current only as of 2004 was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act.
[01/20]
Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation v. County of El Dorado
In a case arising from the County of El Dorado's adoption of an oak woodland management plan and mitigation fee program without an environmental impact report (EIR), the district court's judgment in favor of the county is reversed, where: 1) the county could not rely on an earlier program EIR for its conclusion that the adoption of the plan and fee program would have no greater adverse environmental effect than that already anticipated in the program EIR, and its adoption of a negative declaration; and 2) the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) required a tiered EIR to be conducted prior to the county's adoption of the plan and fee program.
[01/19]
Montana Sulphur and Chemical Company v. US Environmental Protection Agency
In consolidated cases challenging the propriety of various actions taken by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act with respect to Montana air quality, petitions for review of the agency actions are denied, where the EPA did not act arbitrarily or capriciously or abuse its discretion by making a State Implementation Plan (SIP) Call that preceded a formal revision of the SIP governing sulfur dioxide emissions, by disapproving portions of the revised SIP, or by promulgating the requirements set forth in the Federal Implementation Plan for sulfur dioxide emissions.
[01/19]
Hearts Bluff Game Ranch, Inc. v. US
In a suit for just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for an alleged taking based on the Army Corps of Engineers' denial of a landowner's proposal to operate a "mitigation bank" on its property, the Court of Federal Claims' dismissal for failure to state a claim is affirmed, where the Claims Court did not err in holding that the landowner did not possess a legally cognizable Fifth Amendment property interest in a mitigation bank instrument.
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