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Court, regulators clash over uranium project in South Dakota
Lawyer World News |
2018/08/12 23:38
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Federal regulators recently abandoned a proposed survey of Native American cultural resources at a planned uranium mine site in the southwest part South Dakota, just days before a judge decided the survey is required by federal law.
The contradictory actions could further complicate and prolong a regulatory review process that is already nearly a decade old, the Rapid City Journal reported.
Powertech (USA) Inc., a subsidiary of Canada-based Azarga Uranium, wants to develop a mine 13 miles northwest of Edgemont, on the remote southwestern edge of the Black Hills. The project is named "Dewey-Burdock," for two old town sites in the area.
The uranium would be mined by the "in situ" method, which involves drilling dozens of wells across a wide area. A liquid solution is pumped underground to dissolve the uranium and bring it to the surface, so it can be processed for use in nuclear power plants.
Contention over the potential presence of Native American burial sites, artifacts and other cultural resources within the 17-square-mile area of the proposed mine has been ongoing since Powertech applied to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license in 2009. Nevertheless, the commission granted the license in 2014, even as a dispute about the lack of an adequate cultural resources survey was still pending before the commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
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The Latest: Zimbabwe's president welcomes court challenge
Lawyer World News |
2018/08/02 14:38
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Zimbabwe's president says people are free to approach the courts if they have issues with the results of Monday's election, which he carried with just over 50 percent of the vote.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa spoke to journalists shortly after opposition leader Nelson Chamisa called the election results manipulated and said they would be challenged in court. Chamisa received 44 percent of the vote but says his supporters' own count gave him 56 percent.
Mnangagwa is praising the vote as free and fair despite the opposition concerns and those of international election observers who noted the "extreme bias" of state media and the "excessive" use of force when the military cracked down on opposition protesters in the capital on Wednesday.
The president also is looking forward to his inauguration, saying that under the constitution it should happen nine days after election results are declared.
Zimbabwe's president is praising "a free, fair and credible election, as we have always promised" and "unprecedented flowering of freedom and democracy in our beloved homeland" even as the opposition loudly rejects the results.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa spoke shortly after opposition leader Nelson Chamisa said Monday's peaceful election had been manipulated and said the results would be challenged in court.
Mnangagwa, a former enforcer of longtime leader Robert Mugabe, has tried to recast himself as a voice of change. He is calling the deadly violence against opposition supporters in the capital on Wednesday "unfortunate" and says Chamisa has a crucial role to play in Zimbabwe's future. |
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Sex predator law challenged by Cosby to get court review
Lawyer World News |
2018/08/02 14:37
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Pennsylvania's highest court will consider whether the state can lawfully designate certain sex offenders as sexually violent predators, as it's seeking to do in the case of Bill Cosby.
Cosby's attorneys also are challenging the constitutionality of the law.
But the state Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to review the statute was made in response to an appeal by the state in a different case, not Cosby's challenge. A lower court judge had found the process by which offenders are deemed predators unconstitutional.
A state panel last week recommended a judge find Cosby to be a sexually violent predator after the 81-year-old's April conviction on aggravated indecent assault charges.
That classification would require him to receive sex offender counseling by a state-approved provider for the rest of his life.
Cosby faces sentencing Sept. 24. He plans to appeal.
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High court gives mixed verdict on Burgum-Legislature spat
Lawyer World News |
2018/07/31 14:36
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North Dakota's Supreme Court on Monday rejected several of Gov. Doug Burgum's vetoes but sided with the governor in other portions of a dispute with the Legislature that revolved around overreach on both sides.
The high court ruled that Burgum was out of line in four out of five line-item vetoes that the Legislature had challenged. In the vetoes — which included appropriations for the State Water Commission and for information technology spending, among others — the Supreme Court said Burgum had gone too far with vetoes that would have changed legislators' intent.
The Supreme Court sided with Burgum's challenge that lawmakers had improperly delegated authority to a subset of legislators — known as the Budget Section — for how some $299 million for the Water Commission could be shifted among several identified needs.
Burgum made the same successful argument for the Legislature's attempt to have the budget section direct where half of $3.6 million appropriated for information technology would be spent.
"Convenience is no substitute for the mandatory legislative process," Judge Jerod Tufte wrote. He said the Legislature encroached on the executive branch by giving a committee of its members the power to administer appropriations.
Burgum had earlier conceded most of the vetoes would fail. He said in a statement late Monday he was pleased with the court's ruling. |
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Supreme Court keeps 'climate kids' suit on track for trial
Lawyer World News |
2018/07/26 14:35
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The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected another Trump administration request to halt proceedings in a lawsuit filed by young activists who say the government isn't doing enough to prevent climate change.
The high court said Monday that the government's request for relief is premature. The ruling came 10 days after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government's second request for an order directing a lower court to dismiss a case that's headed for trial Oct. 29 in Eugene, Oregon.
The lawsuit brought by 21 children and young adults asserts the government has long known that carbon pollution causes climate change but has failed to curb greenhouse gas emissions. They seek various environmental remedies.
The Supreme Court described the breadth of the lawsuit's claims as "striking." It said the question whether a court can provide an adequate resolution "presents substantial grounds for difference of opinion."
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