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Weekly Cases Update Volume 45, Issue 18
Bear Valley Mutual Water Co. v. Jewell
45 ELR 20121
12-57297 (9th Cir., June 2015)
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The Ninth Circuit upheld a 2010 FWS rule designating critical habitat for the threatened Santa Ana sucker, a small freshwater fish native to several California rivers and streams. In 2004, FWS approved a habitat conservation plan that encompassed nearly 1.26 million acres and provided...
Keywords: Critical habitat designation, Habitat Conservation Plans, Incidental taking
Association of Irritated Residents v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Ninth Circuit denied petitions for review challenging EPA's promulgation of 40 C.F.R. §52.245, a regulation that revised the scope of a previous EPA decision, after the Agency determined that it had mistakenly approved certain new source review rules in 2004 as part of California's SIP. EPA...
Keywords: Approval and revision, §110(a), New source review
WildEarth Guardians v. Montana Snowmobile Ass'n
The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service violated NEPA and other environmental safeguards when it designated over 2 million acres of public land within the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest for use by snowmobiles and other winter motorized vehicles. In 2009, the Forest Service...
Keywords: Beaverhead National Forest, Mont., Environmental impact statement (EIS), National forests
Horne v. Department of Agriculture
14-275 (U.S., June 2015)
The U.S. Supreme Court held that a USDA marketing order under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 requiring raisin producers to participate in a raisin reserve program violates the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against taking property without just compensation. Under the marketing...
Keywords: Agriculture, Just compensation
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition v. McCarthy
3:15-0277 (S.D. W. Va., June 2015)
A district court dismissed environmental groups' CWA citizen suit against EPA for failing to respond in writing to their administrative petition seeking withdrawal of West Virginia's NPDES permit program, but held that the groups may go forward with their claim that the Agency's failure to...
Keywords: Judicial review, §§701-706, Citizen suits, §505, State programs, §402(b)
Medical Advocates for Healthy Air v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for review challenging EPA's approval of a revision to California's SIP that authorized the San Joaquin Valley air pollution control district to impose fees on mobile sources of pollution—primarily motor vehicles—as an alternative to the fees previously...
Keywords: Approval and revision, §110(a), Auto emission standards
Openlands v. United States Department of Transportation
13 C 4950 (N.D. Ill., June 2015)
A district court held that the Federal Highway Administration's (FHwA's) record of decision (ROD) and EIS for a proposed tollroad project between Indiana and Illinois violated NEPA. The EIS stated that the purpose and need for the tollroad is to accommodate an anticipated population boom. The...
Keywords: Discussion of, held inadequate, Highways