standing

News Flash: 10th Cir. Rebukes Government Over Coal Leases

Today’s important ruling on standing, public lands, and climate change

In an important ruling this morning, the Tenth Circuit rejected the government’s assertion that it could ignore carbon emissions tied to renewing coal leases. In WildEarth Guardians v. BLM, the court also rejected the mining company’s attack on the standing of environmental groups to raise this claim.The mines in question are in the Powder River …

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Turnabout is Fair Play

The same tools that have been used to stymie the Obama Administration can be turned against Trump.

Conservatives and industry have perfected some legal tools to block regulation by the Obama Administration.  Those tools can be turned against them, by using the same tools to block anti-regulatory moves by the Trump Administration.  As a professor, I don’t necessarily agree with all of them.  But as a lawyer, I wouldn’t hesitate to use them …

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Statutory Standing After the Spokeo Decision

A non-environmental case opens the door to new arguments about standing.

One of the recurring questions in standing law is the extent to which Congress can change the application of the standing doctrine. A recent Supreme Court opinion in a non-environmental case sheds some light – not a lot, but some – on this recurring question. The Court has made it clear that there is a …

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Justice Scalia and Environmental Law

Scalia’s decisions were almost unremittingly anti-environmental.

Over the past three decades, Justice Scalia did much to shape environmental law, nearly always in a conservative direction.  Because of the importance of his rulings, environmental lawyers and scholars are all familiar with his work.  But for the benefit of others, I thought it might be helpful to summarize his major environmental decisions.  The …

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Standing, Settlement, and Mass Torts

BP is trying to use standing law to wiggle out of its own settlement agreement. The courts have been right to say no.

BP entered into a settlement in a massive class action against it arising out of the BP oil spill.  Now it’s trying to get out of part of the settlement while keeping the rest of the deal in place.  BP’s argument involves three areas of confusion in  standing doctrine: how does it apply to class actions, …

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Still Waiting For Supreme Court Decision on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cert Petition

We May Learn This Week Whether Court Takes Up Important Climate Change Case

Court watchers are still waiting to learn whether  the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the  second most important federal case involving greenhouse gas emissions,  Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. EPA.   The Court is closed today for a federal holiday (not because of the shutdown) but any day we should hear about whether it will take …

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Businesses Without Standing

Standing is notoriously a barrier to litigation by environmental groups.  In fact, many of the Supreme Court’s major standing decisions involve environmental claimants.  The conventional wisdom is that standing is no problem for businesses because regulations limit their freedom of action and impose financial costs.  But recent cases suggest that’s an oversimplification.  In fact, it …

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Clearing Up the Standing Mystery in the Biomass Case

In a post last week, I expressed puzzlement about the D.C. Circuit’s failure to discuss standing in Center on Biological Diversity v. EPA, which involved EPA’s decision to delay greenhouse gas regulations for facilities burning biomass. The question of standing in climate change cases has been controversial, so this mystery sparked extensive discussion among environmental …

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Did the Supreme Court just shut the courthouse door on environmental plaintiffs?

It’s not an environmental law case, but the Supreme Court’s decision in Clapper v. Amnesty International has a lot of environmental law folks talking.  Clapper was a lawsuit that sought to challenge the constitutionality of a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allowed the government to monitor a range of communications by …

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D.C. Circuit Denies Rehearing in Endangerment Case

Six months ago, the D.C. Circuit upheld EPA’s finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, triggering coverage under the Clean Air Act.  Today, the full court denied rehearing to the three-judge panel’s decision.  There were only two dissents, which obviously were hoping to set the stage for a cert. petition to the Supreme …

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