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.

EPA, Environmentalists Reach Deadline Deal For Haze SIPs In 33 States

EPA and environmental groups have reached an agreement that requires the agency to take final action approving or denying 33 state implementation plans (SIPs) addressing regional haze by the end of 2026, resolving a lawsuit that charged that the agency had missed statutory deadline to act. The draft consent decree , announced in a March 29 Federal Register notice , is open for a 30-day comment period before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia can finalize...

EPA Partially Denies Critics’ Good Neighbor Petitions Due To Rule Stay

EPA is partially denying petitions to reconsider and administratively stay the multi-state Good Neighbor Plan (GNP) for attaining the 2015 ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), finding the petitions -- three from industry groups and one from a state -- “provide no good basis on which the [plan] should be modified or withdrawn.” EPA in the denials also strongly defends the “modular” nature of the GNP and is seeking to keep it in force in states where courts have...

Environmentalists sue over EPA failure to implement SO2 limit

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Sierra Club are urging a federal district court to find that EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it failed to implement its 2010 federal air quality standards for sulfur dioxide (SO2) in nine states and two territories, calling for a mandatory injunction requiring the agency to take action. The groups filed a March 28 complaint to the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California regarding EPA’s failure to ensure that...

SSM ‘SIP Call’ Ruling Raises Doubts Over EPA Policy, State Air Plans

A recent appellate court ruling largely scrapping the Obama-era rule that barred waivers for industry startup, shutdown and malfunction (SSM) events raises difficult questions about the future of EPA policy and states’ plans to meet federal air quality standards, with further appeals still possible and states uncertain how to respond in the interim. In its March 1 ruling in Environmental Committee of the Florida Electric Power Coordinating Group, Inc., v. EPA, et al. , a divided panel of the U.S...

Railroads Urge Court To Preserve Suit Over CARB’s Locomotive Rules

The railroad industry is urging a federal district court to rule on the remaining claims in its pared-down challenge to the California air board’s rule requiring emission cuts from existing locomotives, pushing back on the board’s call for the court to dismiss the remaining claims or stay the case until EPA acts on its request for a Clean Air Act (CAA) waiver. In a March 26 brief in Association of American Railroads (AAR) and American Short Line And Regional Railroad...

Refiners, Biofuel Producers Attack Legality Of RFS ‘Set’ Volumes Rule

Refiners suing EPA over its renewable fuel standard (RFS) “set” rule, which set all biofuel blending volumes for the first time under the agency’s own authority, say the rule’s goal of increasing biofuel use is not required by law and is contradicted by evidence suggesting the volumes are too high. “EPA’s Rule disregards the past performance and failures of the RFS as well as the entirely new statutory criteria Congress provided to set applicable volumes for 2023-2025,” says a coalition...

Plaintiffs Urge Court To Preserve ESA Suit Over 6PPD Despite TSCA Action

Fishery group plaintiffs who are suing tire makers under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to block use of the chemical 6PPD in tires over its links to fish kills are urging a federal court to advance their case even though EPA is considering a TSCA rule for the substance, saying courts have rejected past calls to scrap ESA litigation when it overlaps with an agency’s “primary jurisdiction.” Plaintiffs in Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), et al. v. Bridgestone, et al....

Environmentalists Target EPA’s RFS ‘Set’ Rule, Citing Climate, Species Harms

Environmentalists are again attacking the environmental credentials of the renewable fuel standard (RFS), arguing that EPA’s “set” rule, which for the first time set biofuel blending volumes under the agency’s authority, relies on an unlawful and flawed assessment of climate and endangered species impacts. In a March 22 opening brief , Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the National Wildfire Federation (NWF) say EPA, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the Clean Air...

Environmentalists ask Louisiana high court to review Formosa permit

Environmentalists are asking the Louisiana Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling reinstating key air permits for Formosa Plastics’ massive planned petrochemical complex in St. James Paris after industry and the state successfully appealed a decision tossing the permits and EPA abruptly dropped its civil rights inquiry into the matter. The groups filed a March 18 petition for a writ of certiorari in Rise St. James, et al. v. Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) that asks...

Youth Plaintiffs Urge 9th Circuit To Reject DOJ Bid To End Climate Case

Youth plaintiffs in a long-running climate change case against the United States are asking an appellate court to deny the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) latest request to terminate the case, arguing that the court has “already ruled conclusively” that the defendants do not meet the high burden for invoking their requested extraordinary relief. The plaintiffs lay out these arguments in a March 21 filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Juliana v. United States of...

Court Upholds BLM’s ‘Fulsome’ NEPA GHG Reviews Of Oil & Gas Leasing

A federal district court is approving the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) choice not to conduct a more-rigorous National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review of the greenhouse gas effects of a series of recent oil and gas lease sales, including the agency’s decision not to determine if GHGs from the leases are “significant.” BLM’s “fulsome treatment” of GHG emissions already “satisfies BLM’s obligation to analyze the cumulative impact of the lease sales. Taken together, that analysis far exceeds the cumulative...

Fishing Groups Clash With Tire Makers On Standing In Suit Over 6PPD Use

Tire manufacturers seeking to dismiss fishing trade groups’ lawsuit targeting their use of the anti-cracking chemical known as 6PPD over its links to fish kills are previewing arguments over whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring their claims, building on defendants’ already-pending request to dismiss the case on separate grounds. The parties in Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), et al. v. Bridgestone, et al. filed a joint March 15 “statement” with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District...

EPA Rebuts Industry’s Non-Delegation Claim Against HFC Phasedown Law

EPA is rejecting claims that Congress unlawfully delegated the agency legislative authority in the 2020 bipartisan law to sharply phase down climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), offering what appears to be the agency’s first detailed rebuttal to an argument being advanced by an HFC manufacturer and some free-market groups. “By setting forth Congress’s policy and by providing guardrails for EPA’s discretion in the statutory structure and context, the [American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act] provides a sufficient ‘intelligible principle’ and thus is...

DuPont PFAS Settlement Payout Faces Delay Following Unusual Appeal

Payments from a landmark class action settlement between DuPont and water providers over PFAS contamination are facing a likely delay after a California provider that opted out of the deal appealed its final approval, prompting settling plaintiffs to seek a $61 million appeal bond from the non-settling system. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s (Met) filed a March 11 notice of appeal asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to review Judge Richard Gergel’s Feb. 8...

D.C. Circuit Appears Ready To Scrap EPA Air Rule Governing ‘New’ Boilers

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit appears to be leaning toward scrapping an EPA definition of “new” industrial boilers that would keep certain boilers built after 2010 always subject to tough “new source” air toxics standards, a move that would grant industry’s petition to ease the limits for some boilers. At oral argument March 21 in U.S. Sugar Corp. v. EPA , Judges Gregory Katsas, Robert Wilkins and Justin Walker all...

5th Circuit Curbs TSCA ‘New Use’ Authority In Landmark SNUR Challenge

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is adopting a narrow reading of EPA’s TSCA power to craft significant new use rules (SNURs), holding that freshly discovered PFAS contamination from a decades-old plastic fluorination process is not “new” under the law and cannot be limited by a Trump-era SNUR. In a unanimous March 21 decision , a three-judge panel overturned EPA’s closely watched Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) orders directing the plastics maker Inhance to halt use of...

Kentucky Scrambles To Preserve Standing In 6th Circuit WOTUS Challenge

Kentucky officials are urging a federal appeals court to grant them standing to challenge the Biden administration’s 2023 “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, fearing that without such a ruling, the commonwealth will not be able to challenge the administration’s subsequently narrowed rule that seeks to align the WOTUS definition with the high court’s Sackett ruling. In a March 18 brief in Commonwealth of Kentucky v. EPA, et al. , officials urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for...

California Cuts $46 Million Deal With Cummins Over Emission Violations

California regulators have won a $46 million settlement with engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. over claims that the company violated engine emissions control and certification requirements, adding to the $2 billion settlement the company reached recently with EPA and California over separate emission-cheating claims. The California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) “rigorous, state-of-the-art enforcement efforts ensure that air quality laws are followed. And if issues are uncovered, collaboration and action from manufacturers such as Cummins make it possible to quickly implement needed...

Pebble Mine developers seek vacatur of EPA veto

Developers of the controversial Pebble Mine project are urging a federal district court to vacate EPA’s final determination to “veto” the project, charging that the agency’s action is contrary to the Clean Water Act (CWA), arbitrary and capricious, and violates statutes conferring Pebble Deposit lands to the state of Alaska. Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) filed a March 15 complaint to the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, charging that the agency’s final determination...

EPA Faces Novel As-Applied Citizen Suit To Block WOTUS Rule Nationwide

EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are facing a novel citizen suit from a North Carolina landowner that seeks to enjoin the agencies’ from implementing their final amended “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule nationwide, a move that if successful would bar the rule’s enforcement in the 27 states where courts have not yet blocked it. Robert White, who is represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), the free-market group that led the Supreme Court fight that narrowed...

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