Many states have counterpart statutes to the federal CERCLA, or Superfund, statute.  Though these statutes generally have the same purpose: to ensure the cleanup of sites contaminated with hazardous substances and to allow for recovery of natural resource damages caused by those substances, and though most state statutes are “modeled” after CERCLA, many state statutes have specific statutory language or provisions that differ.  This is true of the State of […]

Read More

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in Washington v. United States, a case involving the off-reservation fishing rights of 21 Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest. At issue are culverts built by the state of Washington under roadways it constructed across salmon-bearing streams. The tribes allege the culverts allow the passage of water, but not the passage of salmon, and thus are an unlawful interference with tribal […]

Read More

In early March, the Ninth Circuit rejected a writ of mandamus from the U.S. government that would quash a case filed by 21 young environmental activists. Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court of Oregon scheduled the case to be tried in October of this year. The case, Juliana v. United States, case no. 6:15-cv-01517, involves allegations that the federal government violated both the plaintiffs’ and younger generations’ constitutional rights […]

Read More

The coffee industry sustained a significant loss in its ongoing battle over the provision of cancer warnings for coffee sold in California last week when the trial court in Council for Education and Research on Toxics (CERT) v. Starbucks Corporation (Starbucks), No. BC435759 (L.A. Super. Ct.,), issued its proposed Statement of Decision on Phase II of the case, finding that the coffee defendants had failed to establish their affirmative defense […]

Read More