The implementation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Highly Erodible Land Conservation and Wetland Conservation Compliance provisions (aka “Swampbuster”) program, designed to protect wetlands located on farming property, was the focus of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. On April 1, 2015, the Court…
A state Court of Appeals sitting in Houston, Texas, on March 26, 2015, ruled that environmental indemnities, which were a component of an exchange of Louisiana oil and gas properties in 1994, could be enforced today by and against the corporate successors to the original companies that negotiated these provisions.…
On April 2, 2015, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided a complex Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) contribution cost recovery case in AmeriPride Services Inc. v. Texas Eastern Overseas Inc. (TEO), a dissolved Delaware corporation. The Ninth Circuit vacated this District Court’s rulings on several grounds.…
A significant CERCLA Opinion and Order was issued on March 18, 2015 by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in Northern States Power Company v. The City of Ashland, Wisconsin, et al. Northern States is cleaning up a CERCLA site located adjacent to Lake Superior in…
Last week, the State of Wyoming filed a Petition for Review of Final Agency Action in the Wyoming Federal District Court challenging the new federal hydraulic fracturing rules, 43 C.F.R. Part 3160. The case is State of Wyoming v. United States Department of the Interior, et al., No. 15cv43-S. Wyoming…
Petitions for certiorari have been filed with the Supreme Court of the United States regarding two recent rulings of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In both Aransas Project v. Shaw and In re: Deepwater Horizon, petitions for en banc review were denied, but a significant number…
The U.S. Court of Appeals are encountering and deciding CERCLA (or Superfund) “Arranger Liability” cases in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in the case of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States, 556 U. S. 559 (2009). Earlier this year, the Fifth Circuit held,…
On March 13, 2015, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) issued an important ruling in a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) enforcement matter. The case is In re: Elementis Chromium, Inc., TSCA Appeal 13-03. The Chief Administrative Law Judge imposed a fine of $2,571,800 against Elementis Chromium, a manufacturer and…
On March 13, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking recovery of funds from the president of Environmental Careers Organization (ECO), a defunct Massachusetts non-profit company whose business was to place interns with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ECO received…
In the case of Center for Sustainable Economy v. Sally Jewell and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, decided on March 6, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied the Center’s petition to review the Department of Interior’s (“DOI”) latest proposed leasing program. Section…