Recent Updates to Federal Environmental and Natural Resource Regulations
On-Demand Webinar | Regulatory Uncertainty and Linear Infrastructure Projects: Where Are We and What’s Ahead?
On-Demand Webinar | Linear Infrastructure Redux: Adapting Your Projects to Meet the New Regulatory Climate
On-Demand Webinar | The New NEPA Regulations: A Practical Guide to What You Need to Know
How Trump's Infrastructure Plan Impacts the Energy Industry
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of two legal challenges to the Vineyard Wind 1 project (the Project). On April 24 and April 25, 2024, the same panel of First Circuit judges issued...more
Over two years ago I wrote about a lawsuit filed by a Connecticut-based solar farm developer with a summer home in Martha's Vineyard seeking to enjoin the Vineyard Wind project off the Massachusetts coast. This particular...more
A group of Mississippi municipalities and associations filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court (S.D. Miss.) against the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) for allegedly violating the National...more
2022 saw highly impactful whistleblower and retaliation events primarily resulting from an active U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, an aggressive approach taken by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”) addressed in a November 25th Memorandum a judicial challenge to the United States Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) North Landscape Project (“North...more
Last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals again rejected a FERC NEPA review for failure to assess the climate impacts resulting from the downstream use of natural gas supplied by a gas pipeline upgrade project...more
On August 3, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held that FERC could not avoid use of the social cost of carbon in assessing the impacts of natural gas projects by arguing that “there is no universally accepted...more
Earlier this Month, Judge James Boasberg, who had previously ruled that the easement allowing construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline must be vacated due to a failure to comply with NEPA, nonetheless declined to issue an...more
Last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed vacatur of the easement issued to the Dakota Access Pipeline by the Army Corps of Engineers. As I noted last month in connection with the Biden Executive Order...more
One thing is certain about 2021 – environmental and natural resources-related litigation against the federal government will continue apace and it will impact a range of private projects that require federal authorization of...more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a U.S. Forest Service plan for commercial logging of some 4,700 acres of fire-damaged Mendocino National Forest could not reasonably be interpreted as falling within a NEPA...more
The Ninth Circuit held that a 2012 Environmental Impact Statement that provided a programmatic-level analysis for management of lands in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve could also be used as the site-specific analysis...more
The United States Court of Appeals (Federal Circuit) (“Appellate Court”) addressed in an August 26th Opinion a dispute regarding certain costs associated with a Federal Highway Administration (“FHA”) road design and...more
On July 6, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court granted in part and denied in part the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ application for stay of the order issued by the U.S. District Court of Montana....more
In the continuing saga of Millennium Bulk Terminal’s efforts to build the largest coal export terminal in North America, on March 17, 2020, the Court of Appeals issued an unpublished decision with interesting holdings on...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (“Eighth Circuit”) addressed in a December 6th opinion an appeal from a United States Court of the Eastern District of Arkansas (“District Court”) decision that denied...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (10th Circuit) addressed in an October 4th opinion a mootness issue associated with National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and National Historic Preservation Act...more
An agency’s failure to maintain a historic building—“demolition by neglect”—is not a “project” subject to CEQA. Lake Norconian Club Foundation v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, No. A154917 (First...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Court”) addressed in a June 4th Order whether the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) and the United States Forest Service (“USFS”) approval of the...more
Earlier this week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals partially reversed a district court decision, and ordered the Bureau of Land Management to vacate the NEPA approvals and permits it had issued authorizing the drilling of a...more
On April 23, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that environmental groups have standing to challenge the federal government’s killing of gray wolves in Idaho without conducting additional analysis...more
In the latest decision in the long-running legal saga over the proposed Newhall Ranch development in Los Angeles County, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the Army Corps of Engineers’ EIS and Section 404...more
• This week's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Citizens Association of Georgetown, et al. v. Federal Aviation Administration confirms that once the FAA issues a final Record of...more
On December 27, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit partially reversed and remanded a decision by the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii, delaying if not derailing an expansion in...more
On December 8, 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected two challenges to the 20-mile South Mountain Freeway Project in Phoenix, Arizona. The decision is the latest in a series of court decisions...more