Justia Environmental Law Opinion Summaries

Dr. Hinchee, who resides in Florida, and Chevron appeal the district court's discovery order compelling production of Dr. Hinchee's documents to the Republic of Ecuador. Dr. Hinchee served as a testifying expert for Chevron in a related proceeding. The discovery dispute at issue stemmed from a suit brought by Ecuadorian plaintiffs alleging that Texaco's oil exploration in the Amazonian rain forest polluted private and public lands in Ecuador and that Texaco was responsible for plaintiffs' oil-related health problems and the environmental contamination of plaintiffs' property. The court concluded that Dr. Hinchee's notes and email communications with non-attorneys, including other experts, were relevant within the meaning of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), and the Republic was thus entitled to discover these materials. Neither the text of Rule 26(b)(3)(A) nor its structure, history, and rationale support extending the work-product doctrine to all testifying expert materials. To the extent any attorney core opinion work-product was embedded in the 1,200 documents at issue here, Chevron and Dr. Hinchee could appropriately redact such portions. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's order compelling discovery. View "Republic of Ecuador v. Hinchee, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, several citizens of Alabama, filed suit against Black Warrior Minerals, which operates a coal mine in Alabama, for violations of the new source performance standards. Congress has provided citizens a limited role in the enforcement of the Clean Air Act, 33 U.S.C. 1365(b), and ordinarily a citizen must provide notice of alleged violations to a discharger and federal and state authorities and wait 60 days before filing suit against a discharger. The Act required a citizen who sues a permit holder to sue for a violation of that permit and wait 60 days after giving notice of that violation before filing suit. Here, plaintiffs failed to wait the required 60 days before they filed suit against Black Warrior Minerals. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Black Warrior Minerals. View "Black Warrior Riverkeeper, et al. v. Black Warrior Minerals, Inc." on Justia Law

This appeal concerned the district court's summary judgment order validating a majority of the water nutrient standards established by the EPA's rule and setting a deadline for the EPA to publish new rules, or explain its reasons for not doings so, pursuant to the terms of an existing consent decree. The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review the order because it was not a final judgment under Rule 54(b); the collateral order doctrine did not apply; and the order was not an immediately appealable injunction under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1). Accordingly, the court granted the EPA's motion to dismiss and dismissed this appeal with prejudice for lack of appellate jurisdiction. View "Gulf Restoration Network, Inc., et al. v. Administrator, EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Navy under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.; the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.; and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 701-706. Plaintiffs challenged the Navy's decision to install and operate an instrumented Undersea Warfare Training Range (the range) in waters adjacent to the only known calving grounds of the endangered North Atlantic right whale, and the NMFS's biological opinion assessing the impact of the range on threatened and endangered species. The court concluded that plaintiffs have not pointed to any provision in NEPA requiring an agency to authorize all phases of a proposed action evaluated in an environmental impact statement (EIS) at the time it issued a record of decision (ROD). Therefore, the court found that it was not an independent violation of NEPA, warranting reversal of the district court's judgment, for the Navy to enter into a construction contract after it signed an ROD authorizing construction and after having its NEPA analysis upheld by the district court. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment that the Navy complied with NEPA. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Navy as to plaintiffs' remaining claims. View "Defenders of Wildlife, et al. v. U.S. Dept. of the Navy, et al." on Justia Law

The United States filed suit under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., against Alabama Power, alleging principally that Alabama Power made major modifications at three of its coal-fired power plants without obtaining a permit or installing modern pollution control devices. The court reversed the district court's wholesale exclusion of the expert testimony of two experts, a power plant reliability engineer (Mr. Koppe) and an environmental permitting engineer (Dr. Ranajit), in Alabama Power I, vacated the judgment in favor of Alabama Power, and remanded for further proceedings. The Koppe-Sahu model, as utilized here, was sufficiently reliable to establish a relationship between potential generation of electricity and expected pollutant emissions at Alabama Power's modified plants. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Cinergy Corp did not preclude admission of the expert testimony. The court affirmed the district court's striking of the additional statements and calculations in Dr. Sahu's supplemental declaration in Alabama Power II. View "Alabama Environmental Council v. Alabama Power Co." on Justia Law

The Tribe filed a complaint regarding the government's management of the Central and Southern Florida Project for Flood Control in the Everglades. The gist of the four-count complaint the Tribe filed was that the project diverted excessive flood waters over tribal lands. The district court dismissed three of the complaint's counts for failure to state a claim for relief and the fourth on summary judgment. The court concluded that the district court properly dismissed Count I because the complaint contained nothing to support Count I's allegation that the Corps had an obligation to protect and not interfere with the Tribe's rights; the district court properly dismissed Count II because it contained no allegation of the process the Tribe claimed was due, much less that it was inadequate; the district court properly dismissed Count III because it failed for the same reasons the court found Count I insufficient to state a claim; and the district court properly dismissed Count IV because its allegations were vague and ambiguous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of FL v. United States, et al" on Justia Law

These consolidated appeals focus on a Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., visible emissions regulation promulgated by the State of Alabama and submitted to the EPA as a revision to Alabama's State Implementation Plan (SIP). The court held that the EPA's 2011 disapproval was unauthorized by the Act because the EPA failed to make the statutorily required error determination. The court rejected the EPA's reliance on its inherent authority and the court's remand order as authorization for the 2011 disapproval. Finally, the court dismissed challenges to the 2008 approval and affirmed the validity of the action. View "Alabama Environmental Council, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

This case involved the City of Atlanta's compliance with two consent decrees which resolved complex, multi-party litigation arising from Atlanta's violation of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq. The court held that the district court exceeded the scope of its authority by exercising jurisdiction over the state service delivery proceedings. The district court's order enjoining Fulton County and Sandy Springs from pursuing the state service delivery proceedings in state court was vacated and remanded for the district court to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction Atlanta's Amended Third-Party Complaint against Sandy Springs. View "City of Atlanta v. City of Sandy Springs, et al" on Justia Law

In this matter, the court must decide whether it had original subject matter jurisdiction over several petitions for review of an administrative rule that exempted transfers of waters of the United States from the requirements for a permit under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq., or whether the court could avoid deciding that question and instead exercise hypothetical jurisdiction to decide the merits of the petitions. The court held that, under the plain language of the governing statute, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the petitions and could not exercise hypothetical jurisdiction over them. Accordingly, the court dismissed the petitions. View "Friends of the Everglades v. United States Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

The issue before the Eleventh Circuit concerned a challenge to an exploratory drilling plan under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OSCLA). The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved the Shell Exploration Plan S-7444 (Shell EP) to conduct drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The Plan covered ten exploratory wells on offshore Alabama leases in the central Gulf. This case was a consolidated appeal in which Petitioners the Defenders of Wildlife, the Gulf Restoration Network and others filed comments on the Shell EP, participated in the ancillary administrative proceedings, and then filed a petition with the Court for review. The only issues for the Court's review were whether the Shell EP violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). After review of the parties' briefs and the record below, the Court denied the petition for review, finding the BOEM's decision to approve the Shell EP was not arbitrary or capricious and instead, "reflected the agency's balance of environmental concerns with the expeditious and orderly exploration of resources in the Gulf of Mexico." View "Defenders of Wildlife, et al v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Managem, et al" on Justia Law