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.

Power Sector Rules Bring ‘Modest And Manageable’ Grid Effects, EPA Says

Compliance with EPA’s just-completed power plant greenhouse gas requirements and several other new rules for the sector will impose relatively few risks to adequate power supply, the agency says in new analysis, offering a rebuttal to attacks from industry and their allies that the rules will spark major reliability problems. Even though some utilities may run their fossil fuel-fired plants less often or shutter them altogether rather than install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to comply with the GHG...

TSD On GHG Rule’s Resource Effects

TSD On Power Plant Rules’ Resource Effects


Interior Urges Court To Dismiss First Suit To Enforce NEPA Deadline

The Interior Department (DOI) is urging a federal district court to dismiss a mining company’s case charging officials have missed new congressional deadlines to complete a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review -- the first such suit that seeks to enforce the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s (FRA) NEPA deadlines and provision for applicants to sue. In an April 22 motion to dismiss in Signal Peak Energy LLC v. Haaland before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the...

EPA Defends Regulation Of ‘Management Units’ In Final ‘Legacy’ CCR Rule

EPA’s final rule governing “legacy” coal combustion residual (CCR) surface impoundments largely codifies a proposed version floated last year, but aims to bolster its justification for regulating the class of facilities termed CCR management units (CCRMU) following an industry backlash, even as it slightly narrowed mandates for the category. “With this rule, we are ensuring that polluters are held accountable for controlling and cleaning up the contamination created by their disposal of coal ash,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in...

EPA defends wildfire exception allowing Detroit to attain ozone standard

EPA is strongly defending its decision to apply its exceptional event policy in Detroit and allow the city to meet the 2015 national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone by disregarding exceedances recorded over two days in June of 2022 which the state said was due to wildfire smoke from Canada. In an April 23 brief in Sierra Club v. EPA, et al., in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, the agency says it “reasonably...

D.C. Circuit Pauses ‘Good Neighbor’ SIP Suit Pending High Court Ruling

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has paused litigation brought by states and industry against the agency’s disapproval of many states’ plans to curb interstate ozone pollution, pending a decision by the Supreme Court on whether to hear challenges to a regional court’s decision to transfer litigation to the D.C. court. In an April 24 order , the D.C. Circuit holds litigation in State of Utah, et al. v. EPA, et al. in abeyance...

Louisiana Asks Court To Vacate EPA, DOJ Title VI Disparate Impact Rules

The Louisiana Attorney General (AG) is asking a federal district court to vacate EPA and the Justice Department’s (DOJ) decades-old disparate impact rules for implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in addition to permanently enjoining the two agencies from enforcing their rules against any entity in the state -- not just as they are applied to state agencies. In an April 23 brief , the AG’s office told Judge James Cain of the U.S. District Court for the...

Federal Judge Denies Florida CWA 404 Program Stay Pending Appeal

A federal district court judge is rejecting Florida’s request to stay his ruling vacating EPA’s approval of the state’s Clean Water Act (CWA) section 404 dredge-and-fill permit program as it appeals his decision, finding the state failed to demonstrate that it is likely to suffer an irreparable injury without such a stay. In an April 23 memorandum opinion and order, Judge Randolph Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied Florida’s motion in Center for Biological...

EPA Faces Likely Suits Over PFAS Water Rule’s Science, Novel Approach

EPA appears likely to face litigation from manufacturers and other industry groups as well as water utilities over its landmark final rule regulating six PFAS in drinking water, legal experts say, pointing to potential challenges over the science underpinning the rule as well as the novel “hazard index” approach the agency used to set standards. Doug Benevento, former acting EPA administrator and Region 8 administrator during the Trump administration and now a partner at Holland & Hart law firm, says...

Plaintiffs Urge Judge To Reject DOD Push To Dismiss PFAS MDL Claims

Municipal and other plaintiffs in multidistrict litigation (MDL) involving claims of PFAS contamination from firefighting foam are urging a federal judge to reject the Defense Department’s (DOD) arguments that the Superfund law bars their claims involving certain military sites, countering the provision of the law DOD cites does not apply to the cleanups at issue. DOD has asked Judge Richard Gergel of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina to dismiss several claims in the MDL, arguing...

EPA agrees to deadlines for action on ‘numerous’ air plans

EPA has reached a proposed consent decree with environmentalists to take overdue final action approving or disapproving “numerous” revisions to state implementation plans (SIPs) for Clean Air Act compliance in several Southern states, relating to permitting, ozone limits, interstate air pollution, regional haze and other issues. In a notice scheduled for publication in the Federal Register April 23, EPA announces the decree that would settle litigation brought against the agency in the U.S. District Court for the District of...

Stakeholders File Blitz Of Legal Challenges Against TSCA Asbestos Rule

Chemical industry groups, labor unions and a prominent public health group have filed separate petitions asking four different appellate courts to review EPA’s final TSCA risk management rule phasing out ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, setting up a high-stakes lottery to determine which court will ultimately hear the precedent-setting case. Both the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) and a coalition of labor unions led by the United Steelworkers filed challenges to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) asbestos rule on...

Faulting Court Ruling, Florida Seeks Stay Of 404 Vacatur Pending Appeal

Florida officials are urging a federal district court to stay its decision vacating EPA’s approval of the state’s Clean Water Act (CWA) section 404 permit program as it appeals the court’s underlying ruling, charging that the lower court’s decision conflicts with previous appellate rulings and raises serious legal questions. Florida filed an April 16 motion asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to quickly stay its vacatur order in Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), et al., v....

EPA Formalizes New Policy To Coordinate Civil, Criminal Enforcement

EPA enforcement chief David Uhlmann has formalized a new policy requiring coordination of civil and criminal enforcement, a measure that attorneys at Baker Botts say is “perhaps the most significant change in environmental enforcement since the passage of the basic environmental law decades ago.” Uhlmann, head of EPA’s Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance (OECA), signed a 10-page April 17 memo setting forth the Strategic Civil-Criminal Enforcement Policy with requirements to ensure that EPA’s enforcement program “maintains and strengthens the...

PLF Sues To Overturn Swampbuster In Wake Of High Court ‘Takings’ Decision

The free-market law firm Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is challenging the Agriculture Department’s (USDA) decades-old Swampbuster wetlands conservation program as a violation of the Constitution’s takings clause, just days after the Supreme Court expanded its test for allowing a taking to cover statutory as well as administrative actions. If successful, the suit could further narrow federal protections for wetlands in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett v. EPA , which narrowed the reach of the Clean Water...

CBD signals likely lawsuit over secondary NAAQS plan

EPA’s plan to leave “secondary” national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) largely unchanged, without requirements for emissions reductions, appears headed for likely litigation should the agency finalize the rule as proposed, with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) criticizing the plan’s lack of endangered species analysis. “The EPA is required to assess harms to endangered species when it sets pollution standards,” said Ryan Maher, a staff attorney for CBD, in an April 15 statement. “Air pollution standards must protect endangered...

Republican-led States File Court Challenge To EPA MY27-32 Auto Limits

Over two dozen GOP-led states are quickly filing suit over EPA’s vehicle emissions standards for model year 2027-2032, beginning long-expected litigation against the rule from both states and likely liquid fuel groups as the 60-day window begins for challenges to the rule. The April 18 petition for review , led by Kentucky and West Virginia and joined by 23 other states, was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the same day that...

Steel Groups Sue EPA Over Electric Arc Furnaces NSPS Rule ‘Correction’

Steel industry groups are filing suit over EPA’s February rule correcting errors in the agency’s recently revised new source performance standards (NSPS) for electric arc furnaces (EAFs) used in steel recycling, combining their new lawsuit with existing litigation over the regulations that industry associations fault as “infeasible.” The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Steel Manufacturers Association, and Specialty Steel Industry of North America in an April 15 lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of...

Environmentalists Charge States’ WOTUS Suit Seeks To Go Beyond Sackett

Environmentalists, who are intervening in support of EPA’s defense of its “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rules, are urging a federal court to reject state and industry summary judgment motions, charging that the plaintiffs’ claims are “meritless” and only speculate on the revised rule’s application, and that the suit is aimed at going beyond what the high court already ruled in Sackett v. EPA . Bayou City Waterkeeper, represented by Earthjustice, filed an April 16 combined motion for summary...

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