Here are the updated materials in Yakama Indian Nation v. USDA (E.D. Wash.):
US Opposition to Motion for TRO and Preliminary Injunction
Yakama Reply in Support of Motion for TRO and Preliminary Inj
Second Declaration of Rebecca Bech
Yakama Preliminary Injunction Order
Earlier materials on the TRO are here.
Has implications, one would think, in the Native Village of Kivalina case….
From SCOTUSBlog:
This week the Acting Solicitor General filed a brief on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, urging the Court to vacate a Second Circuit ruling that would permit lawsuits against greenhouse gas emitters for their contributions to climate change. The New York Times covered the filing (via Gabriel Nelson of Greenwire), as does the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bob Egelko, the Washington Post’s Steven Mufson, and Stephen Power of the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire.
The power arrayed against the tribal interests here is simply incredible, and telling about the potential ramifications of the case.
Kivalina opening brief is here.
Add’l Brief supporting Kivalina:
Industry Side briefs:
Amici supporting defendants:
American Chemistry Council Amicus Brief
Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence Amicus Brief
Intl Automobile Manufacturers Amicus Brief
Natl Assn of Manufacturers Amicus Brief
Here is the most recent update in Quapaw Tribe v. Blue Tee (N.D. Okla.):
From the CSM:
A judge on Monday scheduled hearings in an Asian carp case for September – a decision that will allow five Midwestern states to call on expert testimony. The five states are seeking to close two Chicago canals in a bid to stop Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes. A federal judge has set Sept. 7, 2010 as the next hearing in a multistate lawsuit demanding tougher action to prevent Asian carp from overrunning the Great Lakes. The five Midwestern states suing to keep Asian carp – the behemoths that gorge on plankton and leap 10 feet in the air – out of the Great Lakes claimed to score a legal victory Monday.
On Monday, a federal judge held an initial hearing and scheduled more hearings for expert testimony in early September. The Michigan attorney general’s office heralded the decision, since it will be the first time the case is heard on its merits. The Supreme Court earlier this year declined to take up the case.
The goal of the lawsuit is to force Chicago to shut down two locks except in cases of emergency, preventing Asian carp from using the canals to reach the Great Lakes. That plan has met with with fierce resistance from barge and tour boat operators.
But with carp DNA showing up near Lake Michigan and a bighead carp found in June just six miles from the lake – and beyond the electronic barrier that is supposed to keep it out – a number of groups are calling for drastic action before the fish can infiltrate the Great Lakes with potentially dire consequences.
Here:
Maria Gunnoelarger >>
Maria Gunnoe’s family has lived on the same West Virginia land since they settled there after escaping the Trail of Tears. The area has long been coal mining country. Maria’s grandfather and two brothers mined for coal. But the methods of mining for coal have begun to change to something called “mountain top removal”. Maria recently won a major environmental prize in honor of her opposition to this kind of mining. Maria talks to Dick Gordon about fighting for her land, and how she draws strength from the memory of her Cherokee grandfather.
From CPRBlog, h/t to Seattle Law’s Cases and Controversies Blog:
[An excerpt]
EPA is to be commended for declining to let the polluters call the shots at the Portland Harbor site. Their response to the LWG risk assessment sets an appropriate tone. And it gives reason for hope that the agency will continue to take seriously its responsibilities to oversee this and other cleanups.
There is, however, a long way to go in the process and many issues yet to be addressed. For example, there is the point – not directly addressed in EPA’s comments – that it is not only contemporary tribal consumption rates that are relevant to cleanup at the Portland Harbor site but also historical tribal consumption rates and practices. The fishing tribes in the Columbia River Basin and elsewhere have rights – secured, in many instances, by treaty – to take and eat fish as they did prior to the arrival of European settlers to this region. These rights have not always been honored by the United States and its citizens, however. As a result, contemporary tribal fish consumption rates can be said to be artificially “suppressed” from historical rates – due to denial of access to fishing places; inundation of tribal fishing places; tribal members being arrested and their gear confiscated; and depletion and contamination of the fishery resource, often at the hands of non-Indians. Cleanup at places such as Portland Harbor, where tribes and their rights are affected, ought not be gauged against what tribal members today consume, but by what tribal members would consume, were the fishery resource not depleted and contaminated, and were they able to exercise fully their rights to take and eat fish.
The United States today has an obligation to ensure that tribes’ fishing rights are honored. Among other things, the federal government has the duty to see that these rights are not undermined by environmental degradation. A right to take and eat fish is obviously made hollow if the fish are permitted to be too contaminated for human consumption. As it seeks now to clean up that contamination, the United States, through its EPA, needs to keep its treaty promises in mind. This means that EPA needs to redouble its efforts to work with the tribes, on a government-to-government basis, to determine the relevant measures of risk and goals for remediation at the Portland Harbor site. Ultimately, this means that EPA needs to assure restoration that will support tribes’ rights to fish as they once did – and as they seek to do in the future.
From Indianz. Big win for Indian Country, especially Yakama!
Litigation continues apparently, but here are the injunction materials.
Hae-June Ahn has published, “Tribal Governments Should Be Entitled to Special Solicitude: The Overarching Sentiment of the Parens Patriae Doctrine,” in the Ecology Law Quarterly.
Turtle Talk 
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