The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is out with a new rule about how a state can go about assuming EPA's and the US Army Corps of Engineers' "dredge and fill" permitting responsibilities under Section 404 of the...more
12/17/2024
/ Clean Water Act ,
Dredge and Fill ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Florida ,
New Rules ,
Reversal ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Trump Administration ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Wetlands
Sam Hess of Inside EPA and many others are writing about EPA's Halloween Trick or Treat – the publication of a draft Clean Water Act NPDES General Permit that would apply to “commercial, industrial and institutional”...more
Today the United States Supreme Court heard from lawyers representing the City and County of San Francisco and lawyers for the United States Environmental Protection Agency on the question of whether a “narrative standard”...more
Lara Beaven of Inside PFAS Policy reports that Maine farmers have joined litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency for not yet regulating the presence of PFAS in sewage sludge. The plaintiffs in that litigation...more
Two Boston Globe stories I read this weekend on the rapidly shrinking island of Nantucket this weekend are worthy of your attention.
The first story is about EPA's consideration of a plan to intentionally dump 6600...more
Just when Federal agencies and Administrative Law Professors thought it couldn't get any worse, the current majority of our nation's highest court on Monday released a third opinion in less than a week further diminishing the...more
Judge Boyle of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina has denied the Pacific Legal Foundation's client an injunction against EPA's and the Corps of Engineers' most recent Waters of the United...more
Several “red” states and three energy industry NGOs have filed a motion for summary judgment in their Louisiana Federal Court challenge to EPA's 2023 rule regarding the state water quality certifications required under...more
As predicted in February, our nation's highest court is about to hear its third Clean Water Act in four years. Anyone who doubts the outcome of this case hasn't read the other two Supreme Court opinions and that brings to...more
5/29/2024
/ Appeals ,
Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
NPDES ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Storm Water ,
Wastewater ,
Water Quality ,
Waters of the United States
EPA issued a press release yesterday that caught my eye and if you're in the business of building things, including solar projects, it is worthy of your attention too. The press release announces a settlement between a solar...more
5/23/2024
/ Clean Water Act ,
Department of Environmental Protection ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Penalties ,
Pollution Control ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Solar Energy ,
Storm Water ,
Water ,
Waters of the United States
This week our nation's highest court was scheduled to discuss whether to hear the City and County of San Francisco's appeal of a split Ninth Circuit decision upholding an EPA NPDES permit issued to the City and County...more
Sam Hess of Inside EPA has a fulsome report on EPA's everything but the kitchen sink attempt to avoid a nationwide freeze of its most recent definition of Waters of the United States in litigation filed by a North Carolina...more
5/13/2024
/ Clean Water Act ,
Enforcement ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Navigable Waters ,
NGOs ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
Less than ten days after setting drinking water standards for six of the hundreds of chemicals known collectively as PFAS, EPA has now identified two of those PFAS that have been widely used for decades, PFOA and PFOS, as...more
We're approaching the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Sackett v. EPA holding that, contrary to the view of EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers for the past 40 years, the Clean Water Act protects only...more
Juan-Carlos Rodriguez is reporting on DOJ's and EPA's brief arguing that the Supreme Court should leave alone a split Ninth Circuit decision upholding a NPDES permit condition prohibiting the permittee, the City and County of...more
EPA picked another Clean Water Act fight with the United States Supreme Court last week and I don't understand why EPA thinks it is a fight it can win. As many of you know, the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act is...more
Last August, when EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers published their tenth attempt to determine the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act, the Agencies said that regulation involved no exercise of discretion because it...more
A little over five years ago, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation gave Federal Judge Richard Gergel of South Carolina the burden of disposing of any cases “alleg[ing] that AFFF products used at airports, military...more
Last week a DC Federal Judge vacated EPA's approval of the State of Florida's application to assume the Army Corps of Engineers' authority to issue “dredge and fill” permits under Section 404 of the Federal Clean Water Act....more
Some of you may be old enough to remember the movie Wall Street and, if you are, you might remember that just before Bud is taken into federal custody, Lou says “man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him....more
While I was on vacation last week, EPA proposed to identify as “hazardous constituents” nine of the “forever chemicals" known collectively as PFAS. EPA's proposal will now be subject to public comment before perhaps being...more
Lara Beaven of Inside PFAS Policy is reporting on another PFAS citizen suit under the Federal Clean Water Act. This one, by Tennessee Riverkeeper, alleges that PFAS are being discharged from a former Lebanon, Tennessee...more
Just before the holidays I wrote about three Judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals who decided, over the Army Corps of Engineers' objection, to apply the Supreme Court's Sackett test for determining whether something...more
Garry Lewis owns 2000 acres in Livingston Parish, Louisiana and he has been fighting with the Army Corps of Engineers over whether any of those 2000 acres are wetlands subject to Federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction for over...more
You may have thought the movie Oppenheimer would be the only blockbuster involving Los Alamos, New Mexico this year. But now EPA has invoked its rarely used Residual Designation Authority under section 402 of the Clean Water...more