December 14, 2018
The inexorable links between energy and climate change meant climate played a central role in the biggest court decisions of 2018 affecting the energy sector, from Big Oil dodging climate torts brought by cities to the Trump administration's approval of the Keystone XL pipeline running aground due to a faulty review of climate impacts. Here are five significant energy-related court decisions from the past year.
November 27, 2018
In sending a dispute between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and timber firm Weyerhaeuser back to the Fifth Circuit, and in the process reversing a decision on the right of landowners to review agency determinations about land protection, the U.S. Supreme Court has given landowners more options for appeal while diminishing the power of such agency decisions, attorneys say.
November 27, 2018
The U.S. Supreme Court's Tuesday decision to remand timber giant Weyerhaeuser Co.'s challenge to the designation of a parcel of its property as "critical habitat" for an endangered frog keeps the door open for limits on the government's power to protect land under the Endangered Species Act, experts say.
November 27, 2018
The U.S. Supreme Court sent a dispute between Weyerhaeuser Co. and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service involving the dusky gopher frog back to the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday, though the court's ruling gives the timber company a leg up in its fight over the future of a 1,500-acre tract of land in Louisiana.
October 01, 2018
U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared deeply conflicted about whether to agree with the Fifth Circuit's finding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had discretion to protect 1,500 acres in Louisiana for an endangered frog species that does not currently live there.
September 28, 2018
The U.S. Supreme Court will be one member short when it comes in session Monday morning to hear a handful of cases being closely followed by environmental and employment lawyers after sexual assault claims derailed D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh's hopes for a speedy confirmation.
July 09, 2018
Former U.S. Department of the Interior leaders have thrown their support behind the federal government in a challenge at the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's finding that 1,500 acres of private property in Louisiana were critical habitat for an endangered frog species.
April 23, 2018
Weyerhaeuser Co. and other forest land owners on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Fifth Circuit ruling upholding the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to declare 1,500 acres of private property in Louisiana as protected habitat for the endangered dusky gopher frog.
January 22, 2018
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a timber company's bid to overturn a 2016 Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to declare 1,500 acres of private property in Louisiana a refuge for an endangered frog species even though the species does not live there.