566 results for 'cat:"Environment"'.
J. Steigmann finds that the Board properly entered a final order for a set of state-wide standards regulating the storage and disposal of coal ash in surface impoundments, rejecting several energy companies' objections. The Board did not act arbitrarily by adopting a requirement for monthly groundwater monitoring, and by requiring an operator who elects to close an impoundment to remove containment system components such as the impoundment liner and contaminated subsoils. Affirmed.
Court: Illinois Appellate Court, Judge: Steigmann, Filed On: March 14, 2024, Case #: 210304, Categories: Administrative Law, Energy, environment
J. Pearson denies, in part, Norfolk Southern's motion to dismiss, ruling claims brought by residents of East Palestine are not preempted by federal law because the claims involved in the train derailment either involve conduct not covered by federal law or seek damages for a breach of safety regulations. Additionally, Norfolk Southern's transport of more than a million pounds of hazardous chemicals and intentionally setting them on fire in a residential neighborhood following the derailment constitute "abnormally dangerous activity" and establishes a claim for strict liability.
Court: USDC Northern District of Ohio, Judge: Pearson, Filed On: March 13, 2024, Case #: 4:23cv242, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: environment, Tort, Negligence
J. Pearson denies, in part, the chemical and rail companies' motion to dismiss, ruling that when they leased railcars and used them to transport chemicals, they knew the cars would pass through Ohio, which is sufficient to establish jurisdiction in this court for claims filed by the New Palestine residents harmed by the train derailment.
Court: USDC Northern District of Ohio, Judge: Pearson, Filed On: March 13, 2024, Case #: 4:23cv242, NOS: Other Personal Injury - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: environment, Negligence, Jurisdiction
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J. Cochran affirms the Board of Water and Soil Resources' denial of administrative appeals of orders requiring the restoration of wetlands the appellants filled with aggregate and soil. State law authorizes local government units to electronically transmit notices of their decisions unless the recipient has provided a mailing address and specified that they prefer mailing. Affirmed.
Court: Minnesota Court Of Appeals, Judge: Cochran, Filed On: March 11, 2024, Case #: A23-0642, Categories: Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, environment
J. Matheson finds that the lower court properly tossed claims from environmentalists that sought to challenge a land management plan for the Rio Grande National Forest. Environmentalists claim that the plan did not properly take into consideration how it would effect the local lynx population, but the record shows that the government relied on all the proper logging and environmental impact data to make its findings that the plan would not have a significant negative impact on the local lynx. Affirmed.
Court: 10th Circuit, Judge: Matheson, Filed On: March 11, 2024, Case #: 23-1093, Categories: environment, Agency
J. Hummel orders an environmental protection group focused on protecting the Hudson River to produce documents that it claimed was protected information on the basis of attorney-client privilege, attorney work product and material prepared in anticipation of litigation. The group is suing a recycling center for violating the Clean Water Act. The documentation involves communications between the group and a non-party individual, who the court finds was neither an employee of the group’s counsel nor its own in-house counsel.
Court: USDC Northern District of New York, Judge: Hummel, Filed On: March 11, 2024, Case #: 1:20cv1025, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: environment, Discovery
J. Calabretta approves two consent decrees between the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and several companies, including Exxon and Chevron, regarding closed landfills in Solano County. The parties agree the settlement was negotiated in good faith, and is fair, reasonable and in the public interest.
Court: USDC Eastern District of California, Judge: Calabretta, Filed On: March 11, 2024, Case #: 2:21cv1739, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: Energy, environment
J. Rowland grants a number of Illinois municipalities’ motion to remand this ongoing negligence, nuisance and product liability suit to the Circuit Court of Cook County. The municipalities sued Monsanto and several other companies over their contamination of public land and water with polychlorinated biphenyls, highly carcinogenic chemicals whose production was banned in the U.S. under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. The municipalities initially filed suit in Cook County, but companies had the case moved to federal court from in 2023 on the grounds that federally administered lands and waters were implicated in the complaint. But the court grants the remand on the basis of the municipalities disclaiming any injuries to federal holdings, and only seeking restitution for damage done to their own jurisdictions.
Court: USDC Northern District of Illinois, Judge: Rowland, Filed On: March 11, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv3140, NOS: Property Damage Product Liability - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: environment, Product Liability, Venue
J. McShan finds that the lower court improperly dismissed the environmental groups' challenge to the approval of a plan transferring ownership of a gas-fired cogeneration plant to a company seeking to power a cryptocurrency mining operation. The groups have standing since they demonstrated that members who live near the plant come from "disadvantaged communities" cited in climate legislation aimed toward protecting them from harmful emissions. Meanwhile , completion of the transfer and associated construction did not moot the challenge by ending the controversy. Reversed.
Court: New York Appellate Divisions, Judge: McShan, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: CV-23-0689, Categories: Civil Procedure, Energy, environment
J. Bahr finds that the district court properly dismissed a complaint requesting the district court order a company to provide an investor with certain information after the company solicited bids for a project that involved drilling two groundwater monitoring wells as part of a carbon dioxide capture project. The lower court properly entered attorney fees in favor of the company. Affirmed.
Court: North Dakota Supreme Court, Judge: Bahr , Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: 2024ND44, Categories: environment, Public Record
[Consolidated.] J. Franson holds that an agricultural conservation easement qualifies as partial compensatory mitigation of an oil and gas project's conversion of agricultural land. Agricultural conservation easements satisfy Environmental Quality Act regulations that require the provision of substitute resources for compensatory mitigation, even if the result is a net loss of agricultural land. On remand, the trial court must order Kern County to prepare a revised environmental impact report that allows agricultural conservation easements to serve as partial mitigation of agricultural land for oil and gas activities. Reversed in part.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Franson, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: F084763, Categories: Agriculture, Energy, environment
J. Cain denies a request by Louisiana and other energy-producing states to halt the Biden administration’s implementation of a 2023 rule of the Clean Water Act that expands states’ responsibility for enforcement of environmental regulations. Litigant states argue the rule is unlawful and will be expensive for states to enforce. It is in the public interest to allow the rule to remain in effect pending a review of the merits of the states’ suit against the EPA.
Court: USDC Western District of Louisiana , Judge: Cain, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv01714, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Energy, environment, Government
J. Moor orders the partial publication and modification of a previously issued opinion. An untimely challenge to a city's adoption of zoning ordinances regulating development along a light rail line was not made timely by the relation back doctrine. And the city relied on substantial evidence to find that the adoption was inconsistent with the city's general plan. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Moor, Filed On: March 7, 2024, Case #: B318346, Categories: environment, Zoning
J. Traynor finds that property owners have met their burden of establishing the need for a preliminary injunction requiring the county and its agents to refrain from entering the property in a matter involving the construction of a bridge over the Little Missouri River. The county is enjoined from entering onto the disputed property during the pendency of this matter.
Court: USDC North Dakota , Judge: Traynor, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv143, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: environment, Property
J. Morgan grants a discovery request by suburban New Orleans area residents suing landfill operators for foul odors emitted from 2017 to 2019. The landfill owners are ordered to turn over documents they had declared protected from disclosure by the attorney work product doctrine. Following a private review of the requested records, 22 withheld invoices and certain documents contain no “mental impressions, conclusions, opinions or legal theories of an attorney.”
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Morgan, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 2:18cv7889, NOS: Torts to Land - Real Property, Categories: Civil Procedure, environment, Discovery
J. Morris denies a motion for a preliminary injunction against the owner of a golf course after an environmental group claimed there were ponds on the course that were being improperly filled with reclaimed water, among other claims of improper water usage. The group is not likely to succeed on the merits of its case, largely due to the fact that it has not been able to show that the ponds constitute "point sources" that discharge pollutants. Without any more specifics that would bolster the case, the group has not met the high bar of justifying a preliminary injunction.
Court: USDC Montana, Judge: Morris, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv26, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: environment, Water, Injunction
J. Grogan finds the circuit court properly granted summary judgment to the commerce lobby and dry cleaning business in their lawsuit challenging certain regulations put in place by the natural resources agency regarding PFAS and other contaminants. The agency's policies for PFAS and other "emerging contaminants" fall under the statutory definition of "rules" according to the five-factor test established by Wisconsin Supreme Court precedent, and the rules are invalid and unenforceable because the agency did not put them through statutorily required rule-making procedures under state law which, among other things, give parties affected by the rules proper notice of how the law is to be implemented. Affirmed.
Court: Wisconsin Court of Appeals, Judge: Grogan, Filed On: March 6, 2024, Case #: 2022AP000718, Categories: Administrative Law, environment, Agency
J. Ginsburg upholds the district court's dismissal of an environmental group's challenge to two rules that delayed the effective date of a proposed rule that would have reduced the amount of land designated as critical habitat for an endangered species of spotted owl. The group's claims became moot when the two rules expired. Affirmed.
Court: DC Circuit, Judge: Ginsburg, Filed On: March 5, 2024, Case #: 22-5216 , Categories: Administrative Law, environment
J. Fujisaki finds that the Department of Toxic Substances Control was within its discretion to classify violations at an oil and hazardous waste treatment facility as Class I violations. Class I violations are not limited to significant threats to human health or safety or the environment, but may also include operational deviations that might result in failures to accomplish the objectives enumerated in the Hazardous Waste Control Law, such as the ability to perform emergency cleanup operations or to ensure adequate financial resources to shut down a facility. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Fujisaki, Filed On: March 4, 2024, Case #: A166575, Categories: Administrative Law, environment
J. Rogers reverses, in part, the district court's finding for the Secretary of the Department of Commerce on a group of commercial fishers' challenge to a final rule that modified the allocation of red group between the recreational and commercial sectors. The Fisheries Service must address whether the economic analysis used to support the final rule is sufficiently different than the one used to support a formerly discredited final amendment.
Court: DC Circuit, Judge: Rogers, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 23-5026 , Categories: Administrative Law, Commerce, environment
Per curiam, the circuit grants, in part, 16 states’ and a group of industries’ petition for review of the Environmental Protection Agency's demand the states revise their state implementation plans under the Clean Air Act. They have sufficiently supported their claims the state implementation plan-call order must be vacated based on automatic exemptions, director's discretion provisions and affirmative defenses that are functionally exemptions.
Court: DC Circuit, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 15-1239 , Categories: Administrative Law, environment
J. Snauffer finds that the trial court improperly invalidated a regulatory notice issued by the Geologic Energy Management Division which requires oil operators to cease operations if a "surface expression" appears outside of a wellbore as a result of injection operations. The regulations are consistent with the Public Resources Code and with the Division's mandate to promote health and safety. They are supported by substantial evidence that human life is endangered by the appearance of oil, water, steam, gas, formation solids or debris within 150 feet of a well. Vacated.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Snauffer, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: F085832, Categories: Administrative Law, Energy, environment
J. Adams denies the city's motion to alter its consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, ruling that while its proposed amendment to allow overflow of 100 million gallons of untreated sewage into the Cuyahoga Valley National Park is significantly less than the amount of overflow at the time the decree was established, it does not amount to a de minimis impact on the watershed and surrounding area. Additionally, the increase in treatment costs from $56 million to $209 million is not a significant change in circumstances that allows for an adjustment in the consent decree because the city provided no evidence to explain the cost increase and relied on outdated treatment data when it submitted cost predictions.
Court: USDC Northern District of Ohio, Judge: Adams, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 5:09cv272, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: environment, Evidence, Water
J. Moritz grants a motion to transfer a dispute between the EPA and various groups and states over the EPA's decision to disapprove a series of state implementation plans for air quality. The petitioners in the case are asking to review a final rule on a national level, so their dispute is better handled the D.C. circuit.
Court: 10th Circuit, Judge: Moritz, Filed On: February 27, 2024, Case #: 23-9514, Categories: environment, Jurisdiction