Just before the July 4th holiday, I was wondering out loud what was to be gained by having a Federal District Court decide the merits of a challenge to EPA's eighth attempt to determine the reach of the Clean Water Act. ...more
7/12/2023
/ Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
NGOs ,
Rapanos v US ,
Sackett ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
According to a complaint filed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the DeKalb County Wastewater Treatment Facility discharged untreated wastewater into the...more
Just before the July 4th holiday I was wondering what opponents to EPA's and the Army Corps of Engineers' now moribund Waters of the United States regulation hoped to gain by having a Federal District Court Judge in the Lone...more
Sam Hess of Inside EPA reports that Idaho, Texas and several NGOs are pressing a District Court Judge in the Lone Star State to decide their challenge to the Biden Administration's Waters of the United States rule on the...more
Sam Hess at Inside EPA reports that the Army Corps of Engineers isn't going to begin issuing Jurisdictional Determinations until after the Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps publish yet another Waters of the United...more
Five Justices of our nation's highest court have now provided a definition of "Waters of the United States" that will be binding on the Executive and Judicial Branches at least until Congress says otherwise. As Justice...more
6/1/2023
/ Clean Water Act ,
Commerce Clause ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Federal Jurisdiction ,
Inland Waterways ,
Navigable Waters ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Sackett ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
So the Sacketts of Idaho are 2-0 in their visits to our nation's highest court and the jurisdictional reach of the Federal Clean Water Act is shorter than it has been for decades. The opinion of the majority has more in...more
Three Judges of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals have joined Judges in North Dakota and Texas in concluding that EPA's most recent attempt to establish the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act is unlikely to survive...more
While we were all patiently waiting for the United States Supreme Court's opinion (or opinions) in Sackett v. EPA, Bloomberg Environment reports that EPA has another Clean Water Act surprise.
For those of you who have...more
Yesterday President Biden vetoed the Congressional Review Act resolution that would have repealed EPA's eighth attempt to determine the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act. In 1972 Congress overrode President Nixon's...more
Federal District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and various industry groups challenging EPA's eighth attempt to determine the jurisdictional reach of the...more
Sam Hess of Inside EPA points out that Judge Brown of Texas concluded that the United States Supreme Court's nearly forty year old precedent compelling the Judiciary to defer to Executive Branch interpretations of laws it is...more
Like I said at the beginning of the month, most of us have seen this sad movie before so it is no surprise that EPA's eighth attempt to define the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act will be the law in no more than 48 of the...more
Law360 is reporting that a Federal District Court Judge in South Carolina is allowing NGOs, including the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, to continue their Clean Water Act citizen suit against the Army Corps of...more
EPA has now opposed the motions of the State of Kentucky and several industry groups to enjoin its eighth attempt to determine the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act. Much of the content of that opposition is not...more
Sir Winston Churchill famously said "those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Of course he didn't have the nearly four decade long controversy over the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act in mind but...more
This week Sam Hess of Inside EPA asked me if I had an opinion as to why there were fewer lawsuits (so far) challenging EPA's eighth attempt to durably determine the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act than there were...more
Everyone expected that EPA's eighth attempt to define the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act would end up in court. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised that two groups of plaintiffs filed their lengthy complaints...more
Inside EPA is reporting this morning that a three judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has joined the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in upholding the constitutionality of the Congressional Review Act. The Act...more
Backwards, forwards, square and round. So goes a lyric by the late great Jeff Beck who died this week. Mr. Beck wasn't writing about the decades long war over the jurisdictional reach of the Federal Clean Water Act but the...more
While many of us were focused on the 2022 elections, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Charles River Watershed Association again sued the Environmental Protection Agency because EPA isn't regulating indirect stormwater...more
This week a Federal Judge in Montana threw out a NGO's citizen suit against the Yellowstone Mountain Club for what the NGO claimed were unpermitted discharges of nitrogen to a Water of the United States. I wrote about this...more
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have asked the White House Office of Management and Budget to review its most recent attempt to define "Waters of the United States". That definition determines the reach of the Federal...more
Surprising no one, lawyers for EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers have implored the Supreme Court to affirm the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' application of Justice Kennedy's "significant nexus" test for determining the...more
A little over a month ago EPA's Science Advisory Board decided "EPA could benefit from SAB review of the science supporting [EPA's] proposed definition of Waters of the United States.” As many of you know, EPA's proposal is...more