Podcast - Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA: The Intersection of Constitutional and Environmental Law
SCOTUS Clean Air Act Cases: What’s New?
Rewriting the Rules: The Supreme Court's Landmark Decision on Clean Water Act Permits
On-Demand Webinar | Regulatory Uncertainty and Linear Infrastructure Projects: Where Are We and What’s Ahead?
PFAS: Increasing Regulations and Managing Legal Liability
On-Demand Webinar | Linear Infrastructure Redux: Adapting Your Projects to Meet the New Regulatory Climate
The Current and Future Landscapes of EPA Criminal and Civil Enforcement
On-Demand Webinar | The New NEPA Regulations: A Practical Guide to What You Need to Know
One-on-One with David Fotouhi, Acting General Counsel at the EPA
Volatile Times in Vapor Intrusion Regulation: A Legal and Technical Update
[WEBINAR] Fairly (or Unfairly?) Traceable: Are Discharges Through Groundwater Subject to the Clean Water Act?
[WEBINAR] Update on the California Environmental Quality Act: What’s New for 2018
In a partially published 102-page opinion filed June 26, 2025, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 7) resolved cross-appeals by affirming the trial court’s judgment invalidating Los Angeles County’s 2019 EIR...more
On May 29, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, a case concerning the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that limits judicial review of...more
Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County, Colorado, et al. The U.S. Supreme Court recently clarified the scope of federal agency review requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”)...more
On May 29, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado that dramatically changes the way courts scrutinize federal agencies’ environmental reviews under the...more
In Center for Biological Diversity v. County of San Benito (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th 22, the Court of Appeal held that the statute of limitations for two CEQA challenges did not begin to run until the Board of Supervisors had...more
A change from heavy regulation of vineyards to a complete ban on new vineyards did not so destabilize the original project description as to amount to a prejudicial abuse of discretion and require a new EIR. Gooden v. County...more
A split panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit landed an unexpected blow on the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on November 12, ruling that CEQ lacked authority to promulgate its umbrella...more
A Court of Appeal held that the CEQA statute of limitations period does not begin to run after the filing of an initial notice of determination if the project is appealed. Central for Biological Diversity v. County of San...more
The Third District Court of Appeal upheld the Department of Water Resources’ EIR concerning State Water Project contract amendments against multiple CEQA challenges related to impact analysis, project descriptions, and...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has released a final regulation setting individual drinking water maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for five per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These MCLs are...more
The Second District Court of Appeal confirmed again that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) favors finality in rejecting a challenge to a subsequent project approval for a 42-single family home project in Los...more
Late last month, the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases quietly released a three-paragraph memo on how agencies should determine the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. I hesitate to call it...more
Welcome to “CEQA News You Can Use,” a quarterly production of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP’s Natural Resources lawyers. This publication provides quick, useful bites of CEQA news, which we hope can be a resource to...more
An environmental impact report need not discuss impacts that are too speculative in nature for proper evaluation or assess economic costs not linked to a physical change in the environment. County of Butte v. Dept. of Water...more
On June 13, 2023, the Second Appellate District affirmed the City of Pomona’s use of a statutory exemption for its Commercial Cannabis Overlay Permit Program under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines...more
In a lengthy published decision, the Court of Appeal upheld the City of Oakland’s environmental impact report (EIR) for the proposed Oakland A’s MLB stadium and mixed use project, rejecting numerous challenges and affirming...more
The courts issued 16 published CEQA decisions in 2022, continuing a trend of fewer published opinions than the pattern established in earlier years. The only California Supreme Court opinion, County of Butte v. Department of...more
Introduction: Defining Interprofessional Consultation In a January 5, 2023, letter to state health officials, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) clarified a Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program...more
On April 20, 2022, the Third District Court of Appeal filed its opinion in We Advocate Through Environmental Review v. County of Siskiyou (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 683, reversing the trial court’s judgment upholding the County’s...more
On May 11, 2022, the Third District Court of Appeal published its opinion in We Advocate Through Environmental Review v. City of Mount Shasta (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 629, reversing the decision below and ordering the trial...more
A California Court of Appeal held that the EIR for a public water authority’s river diversion and water storage project adequately described the unadjudicated waters to be diverted and adequately analyzed impacts to water...more
The court held that the County of Marin did not abdicate its duties under CEQA when it approved a specific project pursuant to a stipulated judgment. Tiburon Open Space Committee v. County of Marin, 78 Cal. App. 5th 700...more
The EIR for a bottling plant in Siskiyou County withstood challenges to the project description and impacts analysis, but the EIR’s stated project objectives were unreasonably narrow and the County should have recirculated...more
Last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals again rejected a FERC NEPA review for failure to assess the climate impacts resulting from the downstream use of natural gas supplied by a gas pipeline upgrade project...more
In Citizens’ Committee to Complete the Refuge et al. v. City of Newark et al., the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 4) found the California Environmental Quality Act did not require subsequent or supplemental...more