The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear a challenge to Virginia's decades-old ban on uranium mining.

The state has had a ban on uranium mining in place since 1982, soon after the discovery of a massive uranium deposit in the state's Pittsylvania County. It's the largest known deposit in the United States and one of the largest in the world.

The owners of the deposit put its value at $6 billion and said it would be enough uranium to power all of the United States' nuclear reactors continuously for two years.

A few years after the deposit was discovered, the price of uranium plummeted and interest in mining it waned for about two decades. But after the price of uranium rebounded, the deposit's owners attempted between 2008 and 2013 to convince Virginia lawmakers to reconsider the ban. After that effort failed, they sued Virginia in federal court in 2015. The hope was that a court would invalidate the ban and clear the path for mining the uranium. Lower courts agreed with the state, however, and dismissed the lawsuit.

In asking the high court to take the case, the companies underscored the importance of uranium to the United States. Nuclear reactors powered by uranium generate about 20 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States, the companies say. Uranium also powers the nation's fleet of nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers. But 94 percent of the uranium the U.S. needs is imported, they said.

Turning the Virginia deposit into usable uranium would involve three steps. First, the uranium ore would have to be mined from the ground. The uranium would then need to be processed at a mill, where pure uranium is separated from waste rock. The waste rock, called "tailings," which remain radioactive, would then have to be securely stored.

The owners of the Virginia deposit argue that the state can regulate the uranium mining, the first step in the process, but not if the state's purpose in doing so is protecting against radiation hazards that arise from the second two steps. They say that's what motivated the state's ban. They argue the Atomic Energy Act gives federal regulators the exclusive power to regulate the radiation hazards of milling of uranium and of handling and storing the leftover tailings.

The state has argued in court that a climate change lawsuit filed by 16 young Alaska residents should be thrown out because climate policies must be decided by the state Legislature and the executive branch, not the courts.

The state and plaintiffs argued their cases on Monday before an Anchorage judge in a hearing to decide if the lawsuit should advance, Alaska's Energy Desk reported .

The plaintiffs, ranging from children in elementary school to college students, say the state is violating their constitutional rights by failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Assistant Attorney General Seth Beausang asked the court to dismiss the case, citing the Alaska Supreme Court's dismissal of a similar climate change case in 2014 setting precedent.

"The court said that weighing all those interests was a policy decision entrusted to the political branches, and not to the courts," Beausang said.

The 2014 case and the current one were both filed with help from an Oregon-based nonprofit, Our Children's Trust, which has filed legal actions on behalf of young people across the country demanding action on climate change.

The plaintiffs said that in the years since the 2014 Supreme Court ruling, Alaska has implemented a de facto climate policy by continuing to encourage activities like oil and gas production.

"The state's climate and energy policy is causing catastrophic harm to Alaska's climate system and endangering plaintiff's lives and liberties and their very futures," Our Children's Trust attorney Andrew Welle said. "These claims are squarely within the authority of the court."

Attorneys for both sides said they expect a ruling within the next six months.

Environmentalists are asking an appeals court to reinstate a rule restricting harmful methane emissions on U.S. lands, at least temporarily.

Attorneys for 13 groups on Friday asked a federal appeals court in Denver to block an order by a lower court that halted the regulation.

The rule required energy companies to capture methane gas instead of burning it or wasting it at drilling sites on public lands.

The rule was imposed near the end of the Obama administration in 2016. The Trump administration is trying to reverse it.

A U.S. judge in Wyoming blocked the rule earlier this month, saying it provided little public benefit but could be costly for industry.

The environmental groups say the Wyoming judge didn't take all the required steps before acting.

Environmental groups arguing New Jersey's $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil short-changed taxpayers are getting their day in appeals court.

The Appellate Court is set to hear arguments on Monday in Trenton.

New Jersey sued Exxon Mobil for natural resources damages at sites across the state in 2004.

A New Jersey judge approved the deal between Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration and the petroleum company in 2015.

The idea was to hold the company responsible for cleaning up polluted areas, including two oil refineries in Bayonne and Linden and other sites and retail gas stations and to compensate the public for the alleged harm to groundwater and other resources.

Environmental groups say the state settled for pennies on the dollar after earlier estimating the cost at $8.9 billion.

A court opened the door on Friday for possible bans on older diesel cars in the German city of Stuttgart, a major auto industry center, upholding a complaint by an environmental group.

The city's administrative court ordered the state government in Baden-Wuerttemberg to rework a plan to improve the air quality in Stuttgart, saying that it wouldn't bring improvements sufficiently fast, news agency dpa reported.

The state has been trying to avoid unpopular bans on diesel cars thanks to automakers' pledges to retrofit vehicles. But judge Wolfgang Kern said that a year-round ban would the most effective way of keeping to permitted nitrogen dioxide levels, which Stuttgart often exceeds.

The Environmental Action Germany group challenged a clean air plan for Stuttgart that is due to take effect in January.

Friday's ruling leaves open whether, when and how diesel models might be banned. But it increases pressure on German politicians at a time when diesel is under intense scrutiny.

The industry is currently looking for a way out of persistent troubles over excessive diesel emissions, and the government is hosting a meeting with auto bosses next week to discuss ways to reduce them.

A federal court on Tuesday removed an obstacle to the U.S. government’s plan to release more endangered wolves in New Mexico over the state’s objections, but it was not clear whether additional animals would be reintroduced under the Trump administration.

The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted a temporary order issued by a lower court that stopped the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from releasing more Mexican gray wolves after New Mexico refused to agree to the plan.

The state Game and Fish Department is disappointed, but it will keep pursuing the case in federal court in New Mexico, where it was originally filed, spokesman Lance Cherry said. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Jeff Humphrey said the agency was still reviewing the decision.

Despite the ruling, it wasn’t immediately known whether wolf releases would resume. President Donald Trump has slowed or reversed other environmental initiatives since taking office in January, when the appeals court was considering the wolf case.

And many Republicans in control of Congress have long objected to parts of the Endangered Species Act, which is the legal authority for re-establishing the Mexican gray wolf and other animals.

Protected status under the act usually brings restrictions on ranching, mining and other activities.

Only about 110 Mexican gray wolves live in the wild. They nearly disappeared in the 1970s, and the federal government added them to the endangered species list in 1976. The Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroducing them to parts of their original range in New Mexico and Arizona in 1998.

New Mexico has complaints about the way the program is managed, and in 2015 it refused to issue a permit to Fish and Wildlife to release more of the predators.

The agency decided to release them anyway, citing an urgent need to expand the wild population to prevent inbreeding. New Mexico officials went to court, and a federal judge temporarily blocked further releases last year while the dispute is resolved.

A federal appeals court Thursday revived a sweeping lawsuit accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of endangering scores of protected species by approving toxic pesticides without required consultation with wildlife officials.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed part of a lower court ruling in the 2011 suit against the EPA by two environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America. The groups say the EPA has approved hundreds of pesticides that are known to be harmful to endangered and threatened species such as the California condor without legally required consultations with wildlife officials that could limit the pesticides' impacts.

The EPA says on its website that it evaluates risks to endangered and threatened species as part of the pesticide registration process. EPA attorneys have argued in court documents that the environmental groups failed to show a causal link between agency actions and harm to endangered species.

An email to a spokesman for the agency was not immediately returned. "We're hopeful that this ruling will lead the EPA to finally include reasonable safeguards that keep harmful chemicals out of the habitats of the nation's most vulnerable wildlife," Stephanie Parent, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero dismissed much of the environmental groups' lawsuit in a 2014 ruling. The 9th Circuit in a 2-1 ruling agreed with most of the judge's decision, but reversed him on claims stemming from the requirement that the EPA re-register pesticides that were previously approved.

The environmental groups say the Endangered Species Act requires the EPA to consult with wildlife officials when they re-register a pesticide.