5 research outputs found
Alaska Oil & Gas Association v. Pritzker
In Alaska Oil & Gas Association v. Pritzker, the Ninth Circuit reversed the United States District Court for the District of Alaska’s decision to strike down the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (“NMFS”) listing of distinct population segments of the Pacific bearded seal. The court determined that the NMFS was in full compliance with the requirements of the Endangered Species Act and squarely rejected the district court’s demand for highly specific data pertaining to the projected effects of climate change on the bearded seal
Catskill Mountains Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Inc. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
Trout Unlimited’s effort to overturn the EPA’s Water Transfers Rule was stifled by the Second Circuit. The court’s comprehensive Chevron analysis determined that while the NPDES Water Transfers Rule may be at odds with the Clean Water Act’s mission, it was based on a reasonable interpretation of the statute’s ambiguous language, and therefore it did not violate the Administrative Procedures Act
Protect Our Communities Foundation v. Jewell
In Protect Our Communities Foundation v. Jewell, the Ninth Circuit upheld a right-of-way grant issued by the BLM for the development of the Tule Wind energy facility in the McCain Valley in southern California. In its decision to uphold the district court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of the Defendants, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) standards of compliance for a satisfactory Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”). The specific challenges raised by the Plaintiffs and addressed by the court were to the Statement of Purpose and Need, the Project Alternatives, the Mitigation Measures, and the “Hard Look” at Environmental Impacts. Additionally, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed the limits of liability federal agencies are subject to under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act when approving of right-of-way grants for the development of wind energy facilities
Spatial distribution of interstellar gas in the innermost 3 kpc of our Galaxy
We review the present observational knowledge on the spatial distribution and
the physical state of the different (molecular, atomic and ionized) components
of the interstellar gas in the innermost 3 kpc of our Galaxy -- a region which
we refer to as the interstellar Galactic bulge, to distinguish it from its
stellar counterpart. We try to interpret the observations in the framework of
recent dynamical models of interstellar gas flows in the gravitational
potential of a barred galaxy. Finally, relying on both the relevant
observations and their theoretical interpretation, we propose a model for the
space-averaged density of each component of the interstellar gas in the
interstellar Galactic bulge.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure