Since 2016, The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota has been fighting for a more extensive and thorough review of the environmental impact of the Dakota Access Pipeline (“DAPL”). The Standing Rock Tribe and numerous environmental activist groups heavily opposed construction of the pipeline underneath Lake Oahe.  Among their main concerns was the high potential for environmental damage to the lake, which the tribe relies on for drinking water, […]

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Seventeen states and cities (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Virginia, along with the District of Columbia and New York City) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last week seeking judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) of a rule promulgated by the U.S. Environmental […]

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Last Thursday, the Supreme Court tried to balance the federal regulation of point-source pollution with states’ regulation of nonpoint-source pollution under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion left as many questions as answers, however, as it created a new “functional equivalent” standard, but failed to define what constitutes the “functional equivalent” of a “direct discharge.” In short, a […]

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Federal Appeals Court Rejects Climate Change Case   On Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ended a suit brought by children against the U.S. government for neglecting to take proper action to prevent climate change. Though it had collected some victories on its journey to the Ninth Circuit, the issues at hand are not meant to be decided in this venue. The ruling acknowledges that the government has long […]

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