Category: Executive_Cabinet_CN JUDICIAL_CN LAKES & RIVERS_CN

The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday that it has revised a key rule to comply with a sweeping Supreme Court ruling from this year, which could strip federal protections from up to 63 percent of the nation’s wetlands.

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to block a lower court ruling that would revoke the authority of Oklahoma officials to enforce certain laws against Native Americans amid legal confusion over the justices’ 2020 declaration that a large swath of the state remains Indian country.

Top U.S. lawyers are ramping up their work for the fossil fuel industry, according to a new report by climate-conscious law students that singles out firms representing the contentious Mountain Valley pipeline.

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way to complete a controversial Mid-Atlantic natural gas pipeline, agreeing that Congress greenlighted the project as part of a behind-the-scenes deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

The Supreme Court may soon step into a legal brawl over whether Congress violated the Constitution when it passed a law ensuring completion of the Mountain Valley pipeline — a fight that could have important implications for the power of the judiciary.

A landmark Supreme Court decision dealing a blow to EPA’s authority is set to sharply redirect power to the state and local levels, prompting a massive shift in wetlands oversight.

At the close of the final day of their lawsuit against Montana for its failure to rein in development of fossil fuels in the state and slow climate change, all but one of the 16 young plaintiffs filed out of the Helena courtroom with their lawyers, family members and other supporters. Grace Gibson-Snyder stayed, helping the judge’s scheduling clerk, Farrah Looney, collect the beige and blue cushions that had padded the uncomfortable wooden benches where the plaintiffs sat during the trial.

Although the Mountain Valley Pipeline won fast-tracked approval from Congress last week, environmental groups are still exploring possible legal challenges to prevent it from moving forward. President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which includes a measure that directs federal agencies to approve permits within 21 days for the 303-mile natural gas pipeline that will supply gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale fields to southern Virginia.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request by the oil industry to review a lower court ruling barring fracking off California’s shore. In 2014, the Environmental Defense Center (EDC) sued to halt offshore fracking in federal waters off the Golden State. Four years later, Judge Philip S. Gutierrez of the Central District of California, a George W. Bush appointee, found the federal government had violated the Endangered Species Act and Coastal Zone Management Act by issuing fracking permits for the area.

The majority of the nation’s wetlands where many birds raise their young, congregate in winter, and rest during migration—and which filter out pollutants and buffer communities from flooding and storm surges—lost legal protections on Thursday in a Supreme Court ruling that significantly curtails the reach of the Clean Water Act.