Justia U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

After the Department of the Interior amended regulations in 2016, the American Petroleum Institute (API) challenged several of the regulations that governed the calculation of royalties for oil and natural gas produced on federal lands. The district court rejected these challenges at summary judgment, and API appealed. Because API did not show that the agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously in enacting the challenged provisions of the 2016 regulations, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. View "American Petroleum, et al. v. U.S. Department of Interior, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner Angel Aguayo filed a motion to terminate his removal proceedings, contending his state detention and transfer to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody was unlawful. Aguayo was a native and citizen of Mexico. In 1992, he entered the United States unlawfully. For over twenty-five years, Aguayo and his wife lived in Utah and raised four children. In March 2018, Aguayo’s daughter - a United States citizen - filed a visa petition on her father’s behalf. After U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved the visa petition, Aguayo lawfully remained in Utah and applied to become a legal permanent resident. In 2019, state law enforcement officers arrested Aguayo in Springville, Utah. He was later charged with two counts of possession of a forged document, use or possession of drug paraphernalia, and having an open container in a vehicle. At the time of his arrest, Aguayo also had pending misdemeanor state charges for issuing a bad check, shoplifting, possession or use of a controlled substance, and use or possession of drug paraphernalia. Aguayo was detained at the Utah County Jail. The day after his arrest, agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) encountered Aguayo during a routine jail check. DHS then issued an immigration detainer (an “ICE hold”) for Aguayo. He remained at the Utah County Jail for about five months. In June 2019, Aguayo pled guilty to some of the pending state charges. He was sentenced to thirty days in the county jail. He would be later sentenced to 364 days’ imprisonment on the forgery convictions, and an indeterminate term of imprisonment not to exceed five years on the bad check conviction. DHS initiated removal proceedings; Aguayo contested his removability. The Tenth Circuit denied Aguayo's petition: he did not show he was prejudiced—under any applicable standard—by the denial of his motion to terminate removal proceedings. View "Aguayo v. Garland" on Justia Law

This case involved Wyoming’s plan to regulate emissions from powerplants within its borders that produce pollutants that contribute to regional haze, reducing visibility in and the aesthetics to national parks and wilderness areas. Wyoming produced a state implementation plan (SIP) in 2011. In a 2014 final rule, the EPA approved the SIP in part (as to Naughton) and disapproved it in part (as to Wyodak). Through a federal implementation plan (FIP), the EPA also substituted its determination of the proper technology to install at Wyodak, replacing Wyoming’s SIP. Wyoming and PacifiCorp petitioned for review, arguing the SIP should be entirely approved and claiming the EPA failed to grant Wyoming the deference required by federal law when it disapproved the Wyodak portion. Several conservation groups also challenged the rule, arguing the Naughton 1 and 2 portion should have been disapproved because the EPA failed to require the best available technology to reduce regional haze in a timely manner. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the petition as to Wyodak and vacated that portion of the final rule. The Court found the EPA erred in evaluating the Wyodak portion of the SIP because it treated non-binding agency guidelines as mandatory in violation of the Clean Air Act. The Court remanded that part of the final rule to the agency for further review. But because the EPA properly approved Wyoming’s determination of the best technology for Naughton, the Court denied the petition as to those units and upheld that portion of the final rule. View "Wyoming v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for appellate review centered on the air pollution controls on certain coal-fired power plants in Utah that contributed to regional haze. This haze impaired visibility in national parks and wilderness areas across the United States (known as Class I areas). Following Congress’s direction in the Clean Air Act (the CAA or Act) to regulate regional haze, EPA promulgated the Regional Haze Rule to restore natural background visibility conditions in Class I areas by the year 2064. To comply with the CAA’s regional haze requirements, states with Class I areas, or states releasing emissions that may affect visibility in those areas, had to implement the best available retrofit technology (BART) on certain existing sources of air pollution or, alternatively, adopt measures that achieved greater reasonable progress towards improving visibility than BART. The Act required each state to develop a state implementation plan (SIP) for mitigating emissions that contribute to regional haze. The EPA then reviewed the SIP to determine if it satisfied the Act. EPA twice disapproved Utah’s SIPs addressing visibility-impairing emissions at power plants operated by Respondent-Intervenor PacifiCorp. Eventually, EPA approved Utah’s July 2019 revised SIP. In the Final Rule, EPA endorsed Utah’s decision to adopt an alternative measure instead of BART to control for visibility-impairing emissions at the power plants. Petitioners Heal Utah, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, and Utah Physicians sought review of the Final Rule. According to Petitioners, EPA abused its discretion by approving Utah’s revised SIP because Utah’s alternative measure did not satisfy the CAA’s national visibility goals. They also argued EPA failed to respond to certain comments Petitioners submitted during the rulemaking process. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Tenth Circuit denied the petition for review. View "Heal Utah, et al. v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

Three conservation groups challenged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s approval of Jonah Energy’s development project on state and federal land in Wyoming. The project was designed to drill exploratory wells on land for which Jonah possessed development rights. The conservation groups argued the district court erred in upholding the BLM’s approval under the National Environmental Protection Act and the Federal Land Polocy and Management Act. Specifically, they contended the BLM inadequately considered the impact of the project on the sage-grouse and pronghorn antelope migration and grazing patterns. The Tenth Circuit concluded the BLM adequately collected and considered information on the sage-grouse and pronghorn, and selected a development plan that met statutory requirements. View "Western Watersheds Project, et al. v. United States Bureau of Land Management, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner Dennis Arostegui-Maldonado, a citizen of Costa Rica and El Salvador, was removed from the United States in 2008. In 2021, he reentered. The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) reinstated his removal order. Arostegui-Maldonado told an asylum officer that he feared persecution or torture in Costa Rica and El Salvador. The officer referred his case to an Immigration Judge (“IJ”) for “withholding-only proceedings” to decide whether to forbid his removal to those countries. The IJ denied relief. The Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) affirmed. Arostegui-Maldonado challenged the agency’s rulings on the merits, arguing: (1) the IJ misapplied the “under color of law” element to his Convention Against Torture (“CAT”) claim; (2) the BIA ignored his CAT claim; (3) the IJ failed to fully develop the record; and (4) the IJ and the BIA violated his due process rights. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Arostegui-Maldonado that the IJ misapplied “under color of law” to his CAT claim, and granted the petition on that ground. The Court otherwise denied the petition and remanded for further proceedings. View "Arostegui-Maldonado v. Garland" on Justia Law

In 1992, the Crow Tribe brought a declaratory action against Wyoming Game and Fish officials to determine whether the 1868 Treaty with the Crows afforded it an unrestricted right to hunt in the Bighorn National Forest. Relying on a line of prior Supreme Court cases interpreting Indian treaties, the federal district court in Wyoming held in Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis (Repsis I), 866 F. Supp. 520 (D. Wyo. 1994), that Wyoming’s admission as a state extinguished the Tribe’s treaty hunting rights (the “Statehood Holding”). In Crow Tribe of Indians v. Repsis (Repsis II), 73 F.3d 982 (10th Cir. 1995), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s Statehood Holding. Alternatively, the Tenth Circuit held that the Bighorn National Forest was “occupied,” so the Tribe’s treaty hunting rights would not have applied to the area in question (the “Occupation Rationale”), and also reasoned that Wyoming could have justified its restrictions on hunting due to its interest in conservation (the “Conservation Necessity Rationale”). In 2019, the Supreme Court decided Herrera v. Wyoming, 139 S. Ct. 1686 (2019), in response to Wyoming’s attempts to prosecute a Tribe member for hunting in Bighorn National Forest. Critically, the Court held that the Tribe’s treaty rights had not been extinguished by Wyoming’s admittance as a state and that Bighorn National Forest was not categorically “occupied.” On remand, Wyoming continued its efforts to prosecute the Tribe’s member, arguing in part that the defendant could not assert a treaty right to hunt in Bighorn National Forest because Repsis II continued to bind the Tribe and its members through the doctrine of issue preclusion. The Tribe moved for relief from Repsis II under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). But the district court denied the Tribe’s motion, holding that it lacked the power to grant relief because the Tenth Circuit relied on alternative grounds for affirmance (the Occupation and Conservation Necessity Rationales) that the district court had not considered in Repsis I. The Tribe appealed, arguing that the district court legally erred when it held that it lacked the power to review the Tribe’s Rule 60(b) motion. The Tenth Circuit concluded the district court abused its discretion when it held that it lacked the authority to review the Tribe’s motion for post-judgment relief. The matter was remanded again for further proceedings. View "Crow Tribe of Indians, et al. v. Repsis, et al." on Justia Law

Courage to Change Recovery Ranch, recently known as Soaring Hope Recovery Center, provided treatment and housing for people recovering from drug and alcohol addictions in a single-family neighborhood in El Paso County, Colorado. But Soaring Hope claimed the County’s strict occupancy limits, standards for group homes for disabled persons, and policies restricting what treatment options Soaring Hope could provide in a single-family zone led Soaring Hope to close its home in a single-family neighborhood (the Spruce Road home). The Tenth Circuit determined the County violated the Fair Housing Act Amendments (FHAA) by imposing facially discriminatory occupancy limits on group homes for disabled persons without a legally permissible justification. Though Soaring Hope showed standing to challenge the occupancy limits which directly injured it, Soaring Hope did not show standing to challenge the standards for group homes for disabled persons—no evidence shows that the County enforced the standards against Soaring Hope. The Tenth Circuit also held that the district court erred by granting summary judgment against Soaring Hope on its zoning-out claim for intentional discrimination: Soaring Hope raised a genuine issue of material fact about whether the County had prohibited certain therapeutic activities in its Spruce Road home while allowing those same activities in other structured group-living arrangements and residential homes. The case was remanded for the district court to further address the zoning-out claim. The judgment was affirmed in all other respects. View "Courage to Change, et al. v. El Paso County" on Justia Law

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System brought an enforcement action against Petitioners Frank Smith and Mark Kiolbasa, who were employees at Farmers State Bank at the time, after finding they committed misconduct at Central Bank & Trust where they had previously worked. This resulted in their removal as officers and directors of Farmers Bank and the imposition of restrictions on their abilities to serve as officers, directors, or employees of other banks in the future. Petitioners sought review from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the Board did not have authority to bring this enforcement action against them because the Board was not the “appropriate Federal banking agency,” as defined by 12 U.S.C. § 1813(q)(3), with authority over the bank where the misconduct took place. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that, because the Board had authority over Petitioners at the time the action commenced, the Board was an appropriate federal banking agency and had authority to initiate the proceeding. The appellate court also declined to review Petitioners’ Appointments Clause challenge because they did not raise it at trial. View "Smith, et al. v. FRS" on Justia Law

This case arose from the Bureau of Reclamation’s ("Reclamation") Environmental Analysis of a proposed water contract between it and Utah involving water in the Green River Basin. The Green River Block Exchange contract allowed Utah to draw water from releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir instead of depleting water from the Green River and its tributary flows to which Utah was entitled under Article XV(b) of the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948. Conservation groups sued Reclamation and the U.S. Department of the Interior alleging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court found that Reclamation’s NEPA analysis was not arbitrary and capricious, that the agency took a “hard look” at cumulative impacts, and that it properly determined that an Environmental Impact Statement was not required. The Tenth Circuit affirmed: the record adequately demonstrated that Reclamation took a hard look at the proposed action and provided a reasoned explanation of its decision. View "Center for Biological, et al. v. US Department of the Interior, et al." on Justia Law