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.

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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.

Court Eyes Next Steps In Fight Over EPA’s 2022 California Emissions Waiver

A federal appellate court is asking EPA and other parties to propose next steps in a long-pending suit over a 2022 EPA preemption waiver for certain California vehicle greenhouse gas standards, after the Supreme Court’s June rejection of the appellate court’s prior conclusion that liquid fuels groups lacked standing to challenge the waiver. The request by the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a Sept. 29 order in State of Ohio et al v. EPA...

Seeking Merits Ruling, NRDC Fights EPA Bid To Split SDWA PFAS Suit

Environmentalists who are defending the Biden-era drinking water standards for six PFAS are urging the D.C. Circuit to weigh EPA’s motion to vacate four of the limits on the merits and ultimately deny the agency’s motion because there was no procedural error in setting the novel standards for the four PFAS. “EPA’s motion should be referred to the merits panel because it requires a merits ruling and raises contested issues that are intertwined with the rest of the case,” Natural...

EPA Bars Staff From ELI Events, Citing GOP’s Scrutiny Of Climate Training

EPA is formally barring its staff from participating in Environmental Law Institute (ELI) events, citing recent scrutiny of the long-time organization by Capitol Hill Republicans concerned about its climate training for judges. EPA Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi laid out the agency’s reasoning in a Sept. 24 memo, first reported by The Daily Caller that GOP oversight of the group has raised enough concern to justify barring agency employees from participating in any “conference, program or event” organized by ELI...

EPA Urges Court To Preserve Oil And Gas Methane Compliance Delay

EPA is resisting environmentalists’ call for a court to immediately vacate the agency’s interim final rule delaying compliance requirements for oil and gas sector methane and other emissions, claiming it “lawfully invoked” a good-cause public comment exemption and that the groups have failed to justify their “extraordinary request.” EPA’s stance laid out in a Sept. 25 opposition motion filed in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The...

EPA poised to release regional haze overhaul plan

EPA is poised to release its draft plan for revising its regional haze regulations, which is expected to suggest a thorough overhaul of the program that may delay or scrap deadlines for states to attain their haze reduction goals, and significantly ease compliance via an eventual revision to the regional haze rule (RHR). The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) completed pre-publication review of EPA’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) Sept. 25, clearing the way for signature...

Judge allows EPA to de-obligate EJ, climate grant funds

A federal district judge is rejecting environmentalists’ request to prevent EPA from de-obligating $2.5 billion in environmental justice (EJ) and climate block grants while they appeal his dismissal of their lawsuit to a federal appeals court. The ruling hands the Trump administration another significant victory in its efforts to claw back EJ funds appropriated by Congress and obligated by EPA. In a Sept. 25 order in Appalachian Voices, et al. v. EPA , Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District...

EPA Defends Phosphogypsum Approval, Charging CBD Lacks Standing

EPA is seeking to dismiss environmentalists’ challenge to its Biden-era approval of a small-scale pilot project allowing a Florida company to use phosphogypsum (PG) in road construction, charging that the petitioner lacks standing and that the agency properly interpreted the Clean Air Act’s section 112(r) provisions when it approved the project. EPA filed a Sept. 12 response brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in the suit Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) v. EPA, et al....

EPA Retains ‘Mild’ Plan To Reorganize OECA Amid Significant Staff Losses

As EPA moves ahead with its agency-wide reorganization, its detailed proposals for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) remain “very mild,” a former longtime OECA official tells Inside EPA , even as the office suffers major staff departures that threaten to further derail enforcement efforts. EPA planning documents -- including proposed organizational charts , detailed descriptions of proposed changes and comprehensive “functional statements” for each part of the office -- obtained by Inside EPA reveal that EPA...

Proposed Organizational Charts

Proposed Changes

Comprehensive “Functional Statements”


Biofuels Sector Seeks To Stall Imminent Argument In RFS Waivers Case

Biofuels industry groups are seeking to postpone imminent oral argument in long-running litigation over EPA’s approach to granting small refinery waivers from renewable fuel standard (RFS) biofuel blending mandates, after recent moves by the agency granting dozens of waivers and establishing a new policy on how to account for their effects. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is currently slated to hold Sept. 30 oral argument in Clean Fuels Alliance America v. EPA , a...

GOP AGs Offer Path To Scrap Mass. But Doubt Need Given GHG Risk Repeal

Over two dozen GOP attorneys general are offering a path for the Supreme Court to scrap its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling ratifying EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, though they claim this is not necessary for EPA’s proposed GHG finding repeal because the plan is consistent with the “best read” of the Clean Air Act CAA). “[L]egal developments since Massachusetts have shown that GHGs like carbon dioxide are not ‘air pollutants’ under [Clean Air Act section] 302(g),” in...

DOJ Asks Court To Dismiss California’s Suit Over CRA Waiver Repeals

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is asking a court to dismiss a suit by a California-led state coalition that claims EPA and other federal officials wrongly used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to rescind waivers for several California vehicle pollution programs, asserting the suit is precluded in part because of a bar on judicial review in the CRA statute. “This lawsuit asks this Court to invalidate three federal statutes that received majority votes in both Houses of Congress, and that...

Industry Warns Court Ruling Could Allow ‘Effectively Unlimited’ NRD Claims

Industry officials are warning that the recent 9th Circuit ruling allowing Superfund natural resource damages (NRD) claims connected to the cultural uses of contaminated land could open the door for state, federal and tribal trustees to pursue “effectively unlimited” claims for damages. “Companies may need to prepare for more and broader claims, potentially driving higher settlement demands and extended litigation,” lawyers at K&L Gates warn in a Sept. 22 post . “Project sponsors should carefully consider how to address losses...

Appeals Court Hands Texas Another Defeat On Interstate Air Planning

A divided 5th Circuit panel has handed Texas another defeat on interstate air issues, upholding EPA’s years-old disapproval of a state ozone plan while leaving in place a federal program and again defending EPA’s broad discretion on technical matters such as air standards attainment. In their Sept. 22 ruling in State of Texas v. EPA , a split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upholds EPA’s rejection of a state implementation plan (SIP) submitted...

Environmentalists Mobilize To Fight AI Data Center’s Environmental Risks

Environmental groups are mobilizing to oppose technology companies’ plans, often with support of state and local officials, to build massive data centers over multiple concerns, including their huge energy and water demands, potential high costs for other power consumers, and in some cases attempts to evade federal air permitting requirements. Already, they have successfully pressured xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) company, to remove 20 gas turbines from one facility and seek air permits for the remaining turbines’ emissions, while...

Chamber Warns Against SDWA Feasibility Precedent In Lead Pipe Suit

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is backing water sector arguments that EPA’s Biden-era rule requiring near-total replacement of lead service lines (LSLs) by 2037 is infeasible, overly expensive and illegally mandates replacement of lines that run underneath private property. In its Sept. 19 amicus brief in the case, American Water Works Association (AWWA) v. EPA , the group also underscores its fears that EPA’s reading of statutory feasibility requirements, if applied more broadly, would “have disastrous consequences for the Chamber’s...

Industry Asks 9th Circuit To Halt California GHG Disclosure Laws Amid Appeal

Industry groups are seeking to convince the 9th Circuit to quickly block implementation of California’s corporate climate-disclosure laws while they appeal a lower court decision rejecting their preliminary injunction request -- with the plaintiffs bringing First Amendment arguments already eyeing Supreme Court appeal. “Plaintiffs now face imminent, irreparable harm, with compelled speech due on or before January 1, 2026, and unrecoverable compliance burdens being incurred already,” states a Sept. 15 motion for injunction pending appeal in Chamber of Commerce of...

Ruling Deepens Circuit Split On CWA Notice Requirement For Jurisdiction

The 2nd Circuit has ruled that courts lack jurisdiction to review claims alleging citizens may have provided inadequate notice when filing Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suits, easing plaintiffs’ ability to bring such actions and deepening a circuit split that could open the door to Supreme Court review. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit issued a Sept. 16 decision in Mid-New York Environmental and Sustainability Promotion Committee, Inc., v. Dragon Springs Buddhist, Inc. , holding that CWA...

Appeals Court Opens Door To New Block On EPA RIFs, Reorganization

An appeals court is allowing union, nonprofit and local government plaintiffs seeking to block mass firings and restructuring at EPA and other agencies another shot at stopping the overhauls, while allowing discovery revealing the Trump administration’s secretive plans for such changes to proceed in the lower court. In a Sept. 19 order in American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, et al. v. Donald Trump, et al. , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit denied the administration’s request...

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