In a stunning victory, the backroom deal that exempted the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule was declared invalid. But, the state recently filed a new suit in Washington, D.C., using many of the arguments rejected by the Ninth and Tenth Circuits. (Read more.)

• On Our Blog: Tongass and Roadless
• Shell Oil Living in a Land of Make Believe

Supreme Court Allows Air Rule: The U.S. Supreme Court recently let stand a unique air pollution rule requiring developers in California’s polluted San Joaquin Valley to mitigate for the added air pollution their new developments bring … (Read more.)

Pika Getting Help In California: Efforts at the federal level to gain legal protection for pika languish, but recently the California Fish and Game Commission made the small rabbit-like animal a candidate for protection, the first step toward badly needed relief … (Read more.)

Florida Ruling Aids Everglades: In September, with the help of Earthjustice legal action, a federal judge ruled that water coming off state-operated stormwater treatment areas had repeatedly exceeded state water pollution limits for phosphorus between 2005 and 2009. Polluted water running into the refuge harms the delicate ecology and wildlife of the Everglades. The state must now set stronger limits and enforce them. (Read more.)

For more than 100 years, miners, rascals and even Mickey Mouse failed to tame one of America's wildest places. Nature defeated most of those misguided adventurers, but it took the partnership of some plucky lawyers to finally preserve the Sierra's majestic Mineral King. Their pioneering efforts laid the cornerstone of environmental law and gave birth to Earthjustice. ("How The Earth Got A Lawyer.")

• Q&A with Jim Moorman

Tar Sands Extraction Violates Treaties: Tar sands mining in northern Canada is destroying huge areas of important habitat and releasing toxic pollutants that poison wildlife, including internationally protected migratory birds and woodland caribou. Because the resulting harm to these species, which include the endangered whooping crane, undermines international protections, Earthjustice and Ecojustice Canada filed a petition requesting the U.S. Interior Department and the Obama administration to address the impacts on wildlife. (Read more.)

Court Finds Army Wanting in Makua: Residents of O`ahu, who eat fish, shellfish and sea cucumbers harvested near the Makua Military Reservation, have long suspected that military training activities are poisoning their food supply with carcinogenic, inorganic arsenic. Under a January 2007 lawsuit settlement, the Army is required to test these food resources for contamination. The Army conducted a study—but tested only plants and animals that people don’t eat. Not good enough, said a federal judge in October, ordering the Army to redo the study. (Read more.)

EPA To Set Fracking Guidelines: In late October, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it will set guidelines to limit wastewater pollution from gas extraction, including the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—an action that will protect rivers, streams and drinking water. The decision followed a request from Earthjustice, sent to the EPA on behalf of 63 groups across the country, asking further study of the impacts of coalbed methane extraction to include other oil and gas exploration and production processes. (Read.)

The practice of feeding elk in winter at vastly overcrowded feeding stations on the Jackson Hole National Elk Refuge in Wyoming threatens to spread brucellosis and the elk version of mad cow disease, which has been moving steadily westward for several years. A court of appeals recently made it clear that the Fish and Wildlife Service must stop feeding to preserve the elk refuge. (Read.)

Judge Slams Oregon Logging Plan: In the waning moments of the Bush administration, the Bureau of Land Management issued a plan that would have allowed the logging of about 2.6 million acres of land in western Oregon, land vital to the survival and recovery of salmon and spotted owls among other species. The new Obama administration immediately withdrew the plan, but a judge ruled the withdrawal illegal. Now, a judge in Oregon has found the substance of the plan wanting. (Read more.)

A powerful faction in Congress has allied with industry to weaken our nation's most basic environmental laws. Earthjustice is reporting on this barrage of legislative attacks as they occur, through our blog series, Congress v. The Environment. (Read more.)

Prodded by Earthjustice and others, the Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed updated rules to govern new oil and gas operations, which will save the industry money by curtailing waste, improve air quality by reducing methane emissions, and reduce greenhouse gases equivalent to the output of 15 coal-fired power plants. (Read more.)

Supreme Court Reaffirms ESA Protections: For years, some extreme anti-environment forces have argued that use of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to extend Endangered Species Act protections to rare species found only in one state with no current commercial value is unconstitutional. The argument has been rejected many times by both federal appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, but anti-environment groups refuse to take no for an answer. Recently the Supreme Court had to tell them no again when they came challenging ESA protections for delta smelt in California. The Supreme Court found delta smelt worthy of protection and that the law is, indeed, constitutional. (Read more.)