December 21, 2023
From a Supreme Court decision reshaping water rights in the United States to ongoing fights over so-called forever chemical contamination, lawsuits concerning the environment rumbled through the courts in 2023. Here, we look at the lawsuits that shaped the year.
December 05, 2023
The full D.C. Circuit declined to review a panel's mid-August decision throwing out federal approvals for a railway project aimed at transporting crude oil from Utah, rejecting a railroad company's plea that the panel's decision deviated from precedent.
November 13, 2023
The Surface Transportation Board argued that the D.C. Circuit made a factually incorrect decision but did not flout precedent when it threw out federal approval for a rail line designed to transport crude oil from Utah, joining the Biden administration, a Colorado county and environmental groups in urging the court not to reconsider its decision en banc.
August 18, 2023
A D.C. Circuit panel on Friday threw out federal approval of a rail line designed to transport Utah crude oil, ruling regulators failed to fully evaluate a multitude of environmental problems with the project, including increased greenhouse gas emissions, wildfire risks and potential train derailments.
May 03, 2023
A D.C. Circuit panel on Wednesday explored whether it matters that the various environmental effects of a $1.5 billion oil and gas rail line project were considered reasonably foreseeable results or as merely tangential ones when being reviewed by federal transportation regulators if the effects were to be examined under either label.
February 21, 2023
Federal transportation regulators unlawfully favored the benefits of a $1.5 billion rail line to connect oil and gas resources in Utah and Colorado compared to its environmental and safety risks, project opponents told the D.C. Circuit.
December 19, 2022
Federal regulators say they appropriately reviewed the climate change and other environmental impacts of a $1.5 billion rail line to connect oil and gas resources in Utah and Colorado when they approved the project, telling the D.C. Circuit that groups challenging their decision mischaracterized their "comprehensive" analysis.
August 19, 2022
Federal regulators failed to review climate change and other environmental impacts of approving a $1.5 billion rail line that would connect Utah and Colorado oil and gas resources to the national rail network, a Colorado county and several environmental groups told the D.C. Circuit Thursday.
February 14, 2022
Conservation groups and a western county have launched lawsuits challenging federal approval for a $1.5 billion rail line that would connect Utah and Colorado oil and gas resources to the national rail network, arguing that the approval ignored pressing climate change concerns.