U.S. Supreme Court
Previewing This Week’s Oral Arguments in the Supreme Court’s Most Important Property Rights Case This Term
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in what is shaping up as the Court’s most important property rights case of the current Term: Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, No. 11-1447. What can we expect? Koontz is one of three Takings Clause cases on the Court’s docket this Term. …
CONTINUE READINGLA River Supreme Court opinion: narrow or broad-reaching?
As Sean posted yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its rather short opinion in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. NRDC. Rather unsurprisingly, the Court ruled that water that flows from an improved (channelized) portion of a river to an unimproved portion of that same river cannot be considered a “discharge of pollutants” under the Clean …
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CONTINUE READINGLA River oral argument: the Justices debate how to tell the Ninth Circuit that it screwed up
I attended the oral argument on Tuesday in L.A. Flood Control District v. NRDC. (See Sean’s post for an in-depth background on the case, and Richard’s initial reactions to the oral argument). The Justices were actively engaged and appeared to have a strong grasp of the underlying facts about the District’s MS4. Much of the …
CONTINUE READINGToday’s Supreme Court Arguments in Los Angeles County Flood Control District
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals got no love from either the U.S. Supreme Court or the advocates appearing before it today in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel. Nor did a previously-unheard-from government actor similarly absent from the Supreme Court chambers today. Yesterday Sean Hecht posted on the …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Rules Federal Flooding of State Forest Lands an Unconstitutional Taking
Today was a busy day for the environment in the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only did the justices hear arguments in a potentially-important Clean Water Act case. (More on that in a future post.) The Court also issued its first decision among the five environmental cases pending before it this Term–three of which involve property …
CONTINUE READINGDeconstructing Today’s Supreme Court Arguments in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center
Legal Planet colleague Holly Doremus did an excellent job last week of previewing today’s U.S. Supreme Court arguments in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, a potentially important case involving the scope of USEPA’s point source permit jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. But given the results of those arguments and a major, late-breaking regulatory …
CONTINUE READINGPreviewing This Week’s Constitutional Battle Over California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard
On Tuesday morning, October 16th, attorneys will gather at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s majestic courthouse in downtown San Francisco to argue one of the nation’s most important, currently-pending environmental cases. The case is Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Goldstene, and the issue is the constitutionality of California’s Low Carbon Fuel …
CONTINUE READINGProperty Rights & the Takings Clause: Prominent on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Docket This Year
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in a potentially-important regulatory takings case, bringing to two the number of Takings Clause disputes on the justices’ docket this Term. The newly-granted case, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, No. 11-1447, involves the question of whether a government-imposed condition on its approval of a …
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Grants Review in Two Clean Water Act Cases From Ninth Circuit
This morning the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in two high-profile Clean Water Act cases from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The justices simultaneously denied review in a major federalism decision, also from the Ninth Circuit, involving an industry challenge to a California Air Resources Board’s regulation requiring ships to use low-polluting fuels near …
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CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Declares Juries Responsible for Assessing Criminal Fines in Environmental Enforcement Cases
The Supreme Court on Thursday handed down its third and final environmental law decision of its current Term. (The case, Southern Union v. United States, is also significant for being the first criminal environmental enforcement case in the Court’s history) In a 6-3 decision, the justices ruled that criminal penalties sought by federal prosecutors in …
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