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.

Environmentalists Sue EPA Over Coke Ovens Air Rule Compliance Delay

Environmental groups are suing over EPA’s interim final rule (IFR) delaying deadlines for coke plants to comply with tougher Biden-era air toxics regulations, with the litigation echoing a recent suit charging that a similar rule violated procedural requirements in delaying deadlines for the integrated steelmaking sector. In their Aug. 6 suit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), et al. v. EPA , environmental groups challenge EPA’s July...

Amidst LCRI Defense, EPA Plans To Provide ‘Flexibilities’ For Water Utilities

EPA is planning to defend the Biden-era rule requiring near-total replacement of lead service lines by 2037 against a utility group suing to block the regulation, but will work to provide “practical implementation flexibilities and regulatory clarity” to assist water systems with compliance. The Justice Department (DOJ) “is now moving forward with the process of defending the rule,” EPA told Inside EPA on Aug. 7, after the agency signaled it was ready to move forward with the litigation, which...

States Ready Supreme Court Petition To Review PFAS Venue Decision

South Carolina and Maryland are planning to ask the Supreme Court to review the appellate ruling that backed 3M’s bid to remove their PFAS contamination suits to federal court, opening the door to a legal reckoning over whether defendants will be able to keep such suits in federal court where they can raise the government contractor defense. As such, if Maryland and South Carolina succeed, it could allow several other states to keep their similar claims against 3M and other...

Stay Motion

Extension Request


Court Rejects Environmentalists’ Suit Seeking Farms’ Emissions Reporting

A federal district court is rejecting environmentalists’ lawsuit seeking to force EPA to issue air emissions reporting mandates for animal feeding operations (AFOs), backing the agency’s view that a 2018 law barring such reporting under the Superfund law also bars reporting under community right-to-know legislation for emergency pollution releases. The Aug. 7 ruling by Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, deals a blow to environmental and community groups that for...

EPA Reorganization Foes Ask To Return Suit To Trial Court As RIFs Proceed

The plaintiff coalition attempting to block reorganization and mass firings at EPA and other agencies is urging an appeals court to return its lawsuit to the district court, arguing that the case should be reconsidered after two Supreme Court orders and in light of “ongoing discovery and evolving circumstances” surrounding the reorganization. Cities, nonprofits and federal unions filed an Aug. 5 motion to remand the preliminary injunction being appealed in the case -- though the Justice Department (DOJ) opposes the...

DTE Seeks Dismissal From EPA NSR Suit Targeting Corporate Subsidiary

Detroit Edison (DTE) is asking a federal district court judge to dismiss it as a defendant from an EPA Clean Air Act new source review (NSR) case being pursued against its corporate subsidiary EES Coke in Michigan, in a case that tests the agency’s ability to target corporate parents in enforcement actions. Senior Judge Gershwin Drain of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan held an Aug. 4 hearing in the case, United States v. EES Coke...

D.C. Circuit Sets Sept. 10 Deadline To File Motions In PFAS SDWA Case

The D.C. Circuit is requiring EPA and other parties in litigation challenging the Biden-era PFAS drinking water limits to file motions to govern future proceedings by Sept. 10, actions that will likely clarify how the Trump EPA will proceed with its proposed changes to the landmark PFAS regulation. According to an Aug. 7 order in the consolidated American Water Works Association, et al. v. EPA , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit orders “that the parties file...

Environmentalists Urge Court To Enjoin EJ Grant Freeze, Reject Dismissal

Environmentalists are hoping a federal district court will prevent EPA from continuing to enjoin $2.5 billion in already-obligated environmental justice grants and reject the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the novel class-action case, following an Aug. 5 hearing. Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard Aug. 5 arguments over the competing motions in Appalachian Voices, et al. v. EPA , the suit where environmentalists are seeking class-action status that could overcome procedural hurdles...

Court Allows Trump EO Ending EPA Union Bargaining To Take Effect

A federal appellate court is allowing President Donald Trump’s executive order (EO) ending union representation at EPA and other agencies to take effect, agreeing with administration arguments that it stems from genuine national security concerns and is not retaliation against unions for opposing the president. A June 24 injunction from the lower court is an “unwarranted usurpation of a national-security prerogative statutorily entrusted to the President,” reads a July 25 Justice Department (DOJ) brief in the case, American Federation of...

EPA agrees to deadlines to decide San Joaquin’s ozone status

EPA is announcing a proposed consent decree with environmentalists that establishes deadlines for the agency to determine whether California’s San Joaquin Valley air district has attained the 1997 8-hour ozone standard, and to act on a light-duty smog check program contingency measure (CM) submitted by the state to attain the standard. If finalized, the proposed consent decree would resolve litigation filed against EPA by several environmental groups in April to compel action on the two matters, in Committee for a...

Bonta Fights Industry Bid To Stay EPA Waiver For CARB Small-Engine Rule

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) and two environmental groups are urging the 9th Circuit to reject the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute’s (OPEI) request for a stay of a Biden EPA Clean Air Act preemption waiver allowing the state to enforce its rules setting zero-emissions mandates for most new small off-road engines (SORE). “OPEI cites no authority suggesting this Court may stay final agency action simply because someone has asked the agency to reconsider,” Bonta argues in an Aug. 4...

EPA Plan To Drop Stricter NSR ‘Accounting’ Faces Environmentalists’ Suit

Environmental groups are pledging to sue over EPA’s decision to scrap a Biden-era proposal to tighten the agency’s project emissions accounting (PEA) rule that eased air permitting requirements, asking a federal court to pause an existing suit over the issue while they prepare fresh litigation. In an unopposed Aug. 1 motion to govern proceedings in Environmental Defense Fund, et al. v. EPA, et al. , environmentalists ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for a...

Environmentalists sue EPA to force decisions on SO2 plans

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Sierra Club are suing EPA to force the agency to make overdue decisions to approve or deny state implementation plans (SIPs) for compliance with federal sulfur dioxide (SO2) standards from Arizona, Tennessee and Texas. In an Aug. 5 suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the groups say EPA has missed Clean Air Act deadlines to approve or deny the plans, which seek to attain the 2010...

EPA’s GHG Plans Invite High Court To Scuttle Massachusetts, Experts Say

EPA is inviting the Supreme Court to revisit a nearly 20-year-old decision paving the way for the agency’s greenhouse gas standards, experts say, as the Trump administration’s two proposals to scuttle GHG regulatory authority appear designed as a challenge to that decision to foreclose virtually any future standards. These experts say key elements of EPA’s recent proposal to rescind its 2009 GHG endangerment finding either ignore or conflict with language in the high court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA...

Upcoming EPA Filing Could Preview Plans To Roll Back Power Plant ELGs

EPA’s upcoming deadline to file a status report in litigation challenging the Biden-era rule governing effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) for power plants could preview how the agency is planning to revise the rule ahead of a self-imposed summer deadline to propose a rule extending compliance deadlines for the rule’s zero-discharge mandates. EPA is currently facing an Aug. 11 deadline to file a status report in the suits Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEP Co.), et al., v. EPA, et al. ,...

Suit Over Steel Sector Air Rule Tests EPA Policy Of Delaying Compliance

Environmentalists are challenging EPA’s recent practice of delaying compliance deadlines for Biden-era air rules via interim final rules that avoid the traditional notice-and-comment process, attacking the agency’s use of a “good cause” exemption to delay deadlines for steel plants in a lawsuit that may also affect similar delays for other air rules. In Clean Air Council, et al. v. EPA , a suit filed July 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, environmental groups...

Setting National Model, New Jersey Inks $2 Billion PFAS Cleanup Deal

New Jersey has reached a landmark proposed settlement valued at over $2 billion with DuPont and related entities over longstanding PFAS contamination, setting what officials say is the largest environmental settlement achieved by a single state and one that will continue the Garden State’s “nation-leading” PFAS abatement efforts. “The companies have agreed to fully clean up contamination at four New Jersey sites and to pay $875 million in natural resource and other damages to the State for the harm that...

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