WASHINGTON, D.C. — Gulf community and environmental groups sued the Department of the Interior today to challenge an offshore oil and gas lease sale that would offer up more than 67 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas leasing. The department plans to hold the sale September 27.
BALTIMORE, MD — Under a settlement agreement approved today in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, federal agencies will seek better ways to protect the Rice’s whale – a critically endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico — and other imperiled marine species from harmful oil and gas drilling.
HARRISBURG, PA — Today, PennFuture, the Sierra Club, Clean Air Council, Protect Penn-Trafford, and Earthworks filed a joint lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, including Governor Josh Shapiro and the General Assembly, challenging the constitutionality of a law that prevents the Commonwealth from protecting communities from the harm caused by abandoned methane wells.
The North Carolina Utility Commission approved an “Affordability Settlement” between the Sierra Club, Duke Energy Progress (DEP) and Duke Energy Carolina (DEC), which resolves low-income affordability issues in rate cases filed by DEP and DEC.
LAKE CHARLES, La. — Today Sierra Club, along with Healthy Gulf, filed a federal lawsuit challenging a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to authorize construction and operation of over 30 miles of pipelines intended to almost solely supply gas to Tellurian’s proposed Driftwood LNG export facility in Southwest Louisiana. If constructed and operated as proposed, the Driftwood methane gas facility would be one of the largest polluters in the Gulf region.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – This week the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with polluters in a case that would have reduced air pollution in Wyoming’s national parks and public lands across the region.
Helena, MT - A judge ruled in favor of Montana youth climate plaintiffs today, declaring the state is violating its own constitution by not protecting the right to a clean environment. Held v. Montana was the first-ever youth climate case to go to trial in the U.S. and now is the first victory, setting a precedent for further lawsuits.
UTAH – Today the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition for review that would bring some of Utah’s worst polluting coal plants into compliance with the Clean Air Act’s visibility-protection provisions, instead enabling the Hunter and Huntington plants to continue polluting at the same damaging levels they have for more than a decade.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT — A Utah federal judge today dismissed two lawsuits, led by the state of Utah, that attempted to undo President Biden’s restoration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments and attacked the Antiquities Act as unlawful. In the ruling, District Judge David Nuffer emphasized that the Antiquities Act gives the president broad authority to designate national monuments and that the court could not second guess that judgment.
RICHMOND, VA — Today, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted motions by the federal government and Mountain Valley Pipeline to dismiss environmental groups’ pending legal challenges of recent federal authorizations of the project.