Litigation

Latest news on lawsuits brought by environmentalists, industry and others challenging EPA rules on a broad range of issues, as well as breaking stories on state, federal and Supreme Court hearings and decisions.

Topic Subtitle
Latest news on lawsuits brought by environmentalists, industry and others challenging EPA rules on a broad range of issues, as well as breaking stories on state, federal and Supreme Court hearings and decisions.

CBD threatens to sue EPA over Colorado gas permits

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is threatening EPA with a lawsuit for failing to take action against Colorado for issuance of air permits to gas production facilities that the agency already found inadequate to ensure compliance with regulatory limits. CBD on May 8 sent EPA a notice of intent letter , indicating the group’s intention to sue the agency unless it follows through on its earlier objection to the Title V air operating permits of the Bonanza Creek Energy...

D.C. Circuit Sets Briefing Schedule For Stay Requests In Utility GHG Case

An appellate court is outlining a briefing schedule for challengers’ high-stakes push to stay implementation of EPA’s power plant greenhouse gas standards, with the agency’s response to various pending and expected stay motions due in roughly a month. Under a May 17 order in the case, State of West Virginia, et al. v. EPA , from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, any additional stay motions are due May 24. EPA would then file a...

EPA Begins ‘Sorely Needed’ Upgrade To Crucial Enforcement Database

EPA is launching a “sorely needed” upgrade to its internal enforcement database, the Integrated Compliance Information System (ICIS), with officials holding a workshop next week to start to identify requirements for a new technology system to support the Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance’s (OECA) work. The need to modernize ICIS is crucial, one former OECA official says, because EPA’s systems are “woefully out of date and can really only be operated by specialists,” adding that a “knowledge management infrastructure...

San Francisco Renews Cert Bid In CWA Case, Citing New EPA Enforcement

San Francisco is renewing its call for the Supreme Court to review and reverse a split appellate ruling finding that EPA has authority to set general narrative prohibitions on violating applicable water quality standards (WQS), citing the agency’s recent enforcement action as an illustration of its concerns. San Francisco filed a May 8 supplemental brief to the Supreme Court in the suit City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, et al. , warning that EPA’s recently filed enforcement action...

Denka sues EPA over SOCMI rule

Denka Performance Elastomer (DPE), the nation’s sole producer of the synthetic runner component neoprene, has filed the first of several likely lawsuits against EPA’s air rule for the synthetic organic chemical manufacturing industry (SOCMI) and polymers production sector, following through on an earlier promise to litigate the measure. DPE filed suit May 16 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the same day EPA published the rule in the Federal Register . The company has...

Lawyers Eye Options For ALJ Proceedings After Upcoming Ruling In Jarkesy

As the Supreme Court nears the end of its current term, lawmakers and legal experts are dissecting the potential impact of any ruling in a pending suit on EPA and other agencies’ use of administrative law judges (ALJ) and weighing options, including giving defendants in administrative proceedings the ability to remove their cases to federal court. During the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Spring 2024 Administrative Law Conference in Washington, DC, May 10, panelists discussed the potential outcome of the suit,...

Commission Floats Recommendations To Reform CEQA, Reduce Litigation

The Little Hoover Commission is floating a set of recommendations to reform the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and reduce the amount of litigation the law spurs, including by raising the standing requirement for filing a lawsuit, restricting late submission of public comment, and broadly exempting infill housing from reviews. “With this report, the Commission seeks to identify small adjustments that could be made to help improve CEQA and ensure it is accomplishing what it was meant to,” said commission...

Opposing Louisiana, EPA Seeks Narrow Injunction In Civil Rights Lawsuit

The Biden administration is urging a federal court to deny Louisiana’s request for a broad injunction barring enforcement of civil rights rules against any entity in the state and to vacate EPA and the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Title VI disparate-impact rules entirely, calling instead for a narrower injunction barring enforcement of disparate-impact rules only against state entities and upholding the long-standing rules. Louisiana’s injunction request “seeks to gratuitously expand the scope of the relief that this Court afforded at...

Mining Company Seeks First-Time Injunction Requiring EIS By December

A Montana coal mining company is pursuing a first-time preliminary injunction to enforce the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) two-year deadline for completing a detailed environmental impact statement (EIS), doubling down on its lawsuit seeking to enforce the newly enacted deadline. The company, Signal Peak Energy, in a May 9 motion is asking a district court to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the Department of the Interior (DOI) to “submit to the Court within 14 days a schedule for completion...

PEER eyes suing EPA over failure to respond to ‘produced water’ petition

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is signaling it is preparing to sue EPA over the agency’s failure to respond to its decade-old petition seeking to narrow a Clean Water Act permit rule that allows discharges of "produced" water from oil and gas operations in certain western regions. “PEER has waited many years with no EPA action, so the petition is ripe for litigation to compel a decision,” the watchdog group said in a May 9 commentary titled, “Countdown for...

In Precedent For Future Rulings, Split D.C. Circuit Backs 2020-2022 RFS

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld EPA’s biofuel blending volumes for 2020 through 2022, backing the agency’s discretion to set the volumes that were the last issued under statutory targets, but also setting a precedent for the current RFS on how officials handle statutory factors, particularly costs. In a May 14 ruling in Sinclair Wyoming Refining, et al., v EPA , Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Nina Pillard...

Seeking Stay, Critics Detail Merits Claims Over Power Plant GHG Rule

Republican-led states and rural electric cooperatives are urging an appellate court to stay implementation of EPA’s power plant GHG rule for existing coal and new gas plants, detailing for the first time their merits arguments that the standards effectively force the closure of coal plants and echo an Obama-era measure that was vacated in court. “New details aside, the rule is just as unlawful as EPA’s last try,” a coalition of GOP-led states writes in its stay request filed late...

Texas Firms Launch First Challenge To TSCA Methylene Chloride Rule

Two Texas-based companies have filed what is apparently the first lawsuit against EPA’s final risk management rule on methylene chloride, opening what is widely expected to be a slew of challenges from industry, environmental and labor groups challenging the rule that the agency says sets a precedent for other TSCA regulations. East Fork Enterprises, Inc., and Epic Paint Company filed a joint petition seeking review of the methylene chloride rule with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit...

Colorado Defends Oil, Gas Air Permit Program Against Environmentalists

Colorado is again defending its air permitting program for oil and gas production against legal attacks by environmentalists, intervening to support EPA in a suit that seeks to overturn the agency’s approval of a Colorado plan that seeks to “clarify” key regulatory terms, part of a broader dispute over regulation of drilling in the state. In a legal brief filed May 10 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v. EPA,...

State Coalition Launches D.C. Circuit Challenge To EPA Truck GHG Rule

A coalition of two dozen states led by Nebraska is launching a suit against EPA’s “phase 3” greenhouse gas standards for heavy trucks, arguing that the measure unlawfully would force manufacturers to build more electric vehicles (EVs). Filed late May 13 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the litigation challenges the standards for model year 2027-2032 trucks. The states filed the challenge the same day that a similar coalition of 17 states joined pre-existing...

Accepting 5th Circuit Loss, EPA Drops Landmark SNUR Enforcement Suit

EPA is voluntarily dismissing its landmark enforcement suit against a plastics maker over PFAS contamination that the agency claimed violates a Trump-era significant new use rule (SNUR), appearing to accept as binding the related appellate ruling narrowing EPA’s authority to regulate certain “new” uses under TSCA -- at least as it applies to the company. “Plaintiff, the United States of America, on behalf of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, hereby gives notice that it voluntarily dismisses its action in...

Chemical industry groups join challenge to RMP rule

A coalition of chemical industry groups and manufacturers is suing EPA over its rule updating the risk management program (RMP), saying it exceeds the agency’s statutory authority and will not actually improve safety, joining litigation launched by a collection of Republican attorneys general and legislators from 14 states. The coalition of trade groups filed a petition for review of the RMP rule late on May 10 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “This major...

Landmark CERCLA Ruling Faces New Appeal Over Future Response Costs

Two paper company defendants in precedent-setting litigation over the trigger for the statute of limitations in Superfund contribution actions are appealing a lower court ruling finding them liable for future response costs -- an appeal that raises doubts about the scope of the appellate court’s original precedent. Weyerhaeuser Co. and International Paper filed May 1 notices of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in the suit Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP (GP), et al., v. NCR...

EPA Lets Stand 5th Circuit Ruling Narrowing TSCA Scrutiny Of ‘New Uses’

EPA has declined to seek rehearing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s decision that curtailed the scope of its TSCA significant new use rules (SNURs) -- a move that one industry attorney says is disappointing as it leaves in place a precedent on the law’s definition of “new uses” seen as “poorly reasoned” even by the agency’s critics. At issue is the 5th Circuit’s March 21 ruling in Inhance Technologies v. EPA , where a unanimous...

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