The Second District Court of Appeal issued an unpublished decision in the case Los Padres Forestwatch et al., v. County of Ventura on May 1, 2019, addressing the preparation of an EIR addendum for a 2015 CUP allowing the continued operation of existing oil and gas wells and the addition of new wells. The case […]
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Bohmker v. Oregon, holding that Oregon’s five-year moratorium on the use of motorized mining equipment in rivers and streams that contain essential salmon habitat is not preempted by federal law. The Oregon law was passed following California’s revisions to California Fish […]
On March 6, 2019, the California First District Court of Appeal, in Point San Pedro Road Coalition v. County of Marin (2019) 245 Cal.Rptr.3d 580, considered whether import of asphalt grindings was within a mine’s legal nonconforming use or whether it was an impermissible expansion or enlargement. The court found that the import improperly expanding […]
The case Ione Valley Land, Air, and Water Defense Alliance, LLC v. County of Amador (33 Cal.App.5th 165) was certified for partial publication by the Third District Court of Appeal, and addresses res judicata in the CEQA context. The controversy originated with the County of Amador certification of an EIR for an aggregate quarry project […]
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) issued a landmark decision last week in Jam v. International Finance Corporation, ruling for the first time that the World Bank can be sued for environmental and health issues where its investments in foreign development projects are alleged to have caused harm to local communities. This decision could make it […]
San Francisco and Oakland have renewed their fight to try and make Big Oil pay for climate-change related infrastructure damage, asking a federal appeals court earlier this week to reconsider their previously dismissed lawsuits against five oil companies. San Francisco and Oakland argue that a federal judge wrongly kept their cases out of state court […]
A jury on Wednesday awarded $80 million in damages to a California man who blamed Roundup weed killer for his cancer. The six-person jury in San Francisco returned its verdict in favor of Edwin Hardeman, 70, who said he used Roundup products to treat poison oak, overgrowth and weeds on his San Francisco Bay Area […]
The below is from the ConocoPhillips Press Release HERE. HOUSTON – ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) today announced that an international arbitration Tribunal ruled Venezuela unlawfully expropriated ConocoPhillips’ significant oil investments in the Petrozuata and Hamaca heavy crude oil projects and the offshore Corocoro development project. According to an International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) […]
In a joint statement released on Thursday, the White House, Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the Trump administration has ended negotiations with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. Until Thursday, the EPA, CARB, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had been engaged in talks […]
The below excerpt from Scotusblog can be found HERE. The Clean Water Act bars the discharge of any pollutant into “navigable waters” without a permit. In its lone grant on today’s order list, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a violation of the CWA occurs only when a pollutant is released directly into navigable […]
