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 Seeks To Resume LCRI Suit, Signaling Decision On Replacement Rule

EPA is seeking to resume litigation challenging the Biden-era Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI), which requires near-total replacement of lead service lines by 2037, signaling the agency has decided whether it will defend the rule or ask the court to send it back to EPA for reconsideration. In an Aug. 4 motion , EPA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to end a months-long pause on the case, which had been granted to allow Trump...

Two Democratic Governors Join State AGs’ Suit Over OMB Grant Freeze

The Democratic governors of Kansas and Kentucky are joining forces with Democratic attorneys general (AGs) in a lawsuit seeking to halt what they say are unlawful Trump administration grant freezes at EPA and other agencies, bringing to 24 the number of states and localities challenging the freezes. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) joined the case, New Jersey, et al. v. U.S. Office of Management & Budget (OMB)., et al. , in the U.S. District...

Most House Democrats Back States’ Suit Challenging Trump Funding Freeze

Nearly two-thirds of House Democrats have signed on to an amicus brief in support of Democratic states’ suit challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping funding freeze at EPA and other agencies, arguing the freeze on appropriated funds to states violates the Constitution, harms constituents and decimates Congress’ ability to function. “The President is attempting to override Congress’s constitutional lawmaking authority,” the lawmakers say. “When a new President is elected, the laws of the United States are not wiped clean and...

Court To Weigh First Class Action Injunction Request Over EPA Grant Freeze

A district court judge is slated to hear arguments next week in the first class-action suit seeking to force the Trump EPA to release previously obligated environmental justice (EJ) grants, even though the agency is arguing the case is moot because the grant funds were rescinded in Republicans’ recently enacted reconciliation law. However, environmentalists say the case is not moot because the vast majority of the $3 billion at issue was not rescinded in the law. Judge Richard Leon of...

D.C. Circuit Denies Claim That HFC Law Violates Nondelegation Doctrine

A unanimous three-judge D.C. Circuit panel is rejecting a constitutional challenge to the 2020 law requiring EPA to phase down climate-warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), concluding that the statute does not delegate legislative authority to the agency as a free-market legal group has argued. The court also disagrees with the New Civil Liberties Alliance lawyers representing HFC manufacturer Choice Refrigerants that a recent Supreme Court decision helps their case -- instead emphasizing that the high court has said Congress need not provide...

Experts Offer Senate Split Views On Legislative Response To Loper Bright

Legal experts are divided on how Congress should respond to the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision ending deference to EPA’s and other agencies’ statutory interpretations, with some telling senators to delegate more authority to agencies while others argued that lawmakers should avoid such delegations and instead make legislation more prescriptive. At a July 30 hearing of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee panel, experts provided advice to senators on how to write legislation in the wake of Loper Bright...

Environmentalists Sue Alabama Power To Address Biden EPA’s CCR Findings

Environmentalists are suing Alabama Power over alleged violations of EPA’s 2015 coal combustion residuals (CCR) rule, picking up the baton on Biden-era findings that the company planned to close impoundments at its Plant Gadsden in violation of the rule’s groundwater monitoring mandates. The suit , Coosa Riverkeeper Inc., v. Alabama Power Company , filed July 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, signals the Trump administration is not pursuing similar actions against this plant. “The...

EPA Claims GHG Endangerment Repeal Retains Air Law Preemption Shield

EPA is claiming that repealing the agency’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG limits would nevertheless preserve federal preemption of state vehicle GHG standards under the Clean Air Act (CAA) as well as federal common law claims related to GHGs. The agency’s arguments -- which could affect oil majors’ chief legal defense against a raft of over two dozen climate tort cases proceeding in state courts -- underscore a potential high stakes consequence for industry from EPA’s...

Groups Detail CEQA Claims In Suit Seeking To Block First-Time CCS Project

A coalition of community, environmental justice and conservation groups is detailing legal claims that Kern County violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving a first-of-its-kind carbon capture and storage (CCS) project tied to natural gas production. The county’s environmental impact report (EIR) for the project “failed to analyze and mitigate the wide array of impacts from this novel project, did not consider feasible alternatives, and ignored its far-reaching consequences not just to the County but also to the...

8th Circuit Vacates Precedent Barring CEQ From Issuing NEPA Rules

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit is granting environmentalists’ request to vacate a lower court decision that held the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) lacks authority to issue binding National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing rules, handing advocates a rare NEPA win. While the decision is a rare win for environmentalists, the ruling is unlikely to have any practical significance anytime soon as the Trump administration has already repealed CEQ’s rules,...

Nokia, OxyChem Assail Passaic Superfund Settlement In Third Circuit

Two major companies are urging an appellate court to overturn a settlement for cleanup of New Jersey’s Passaic River, one of the nation’s most contaminated Superfund sites, faulting the liability allocation prepared by an EPA contractor -- though they are doing so for opposite reasons. In a July 28 brief, the Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem), the largest contributor to pollution at the Diamond Alkali Superfund site, argues that the settlement, which allows dozens of parties with smaller liability to cash...

Air Force, New Mexico Escalate Dispute Over Cannon AFB PFAS Cleanup

New Mexico’s top environmental regulator says the Air Force appears to be escalating its dispute with the state over PFAS contamination at an air base, sidelining state inspectors and seeking changes in court venue as state officials again seek to oversee the cleanup through litigation bolstered by a new state law regulating PFAS-containing firefighting foam. The Air Force appears to be testing that new law, in what New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Secretary James Kenney says are actions inconsistent with...

Proposed Endangerment Finding Repeal

Draft Regulatory Impact Analysis


EPA Endangerment Finding Plan Claims Lack Of Authority To Limit GHGs

The Trump EPA’s just-issued proposal to rescind the agency’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding and repeal all GHG standards for vehicles makes a series of arguments for why the original Obama-era finding and rule are unlawful, claims that will be tested in suits that environmentalists and other critics are already vowing to file. For example, EPA claims in announcing the plan that Obama officials that wrote the original finding ignored “Congress’s clear intent” by making the finding “totally separate from...

Zeldin Touts GHG Risk Finding Repeal As Unprecedented Deregulatory Move

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is declaring that the agency’s imminent proposal to undo the agency’s 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding and related vehicle GHG rules “will be the largest deregulatory action in the history of America,” previewing arguments the agency will make in defense of the plan. Zeldin’s declaration on a July 29 edition of the conservative podcast Ruthless -- in advance of a scheduled afternoon event in Indiana to formally unveil the proposal -- also took frequent jibes at...

CBD Presses 11th Circuit To Vacate EPA’s Phosphogypsum Approval

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is urging the 11th Circuit to vacate EPA’s formal approval of a small-scale pilot project allowing a Florida company to use radioactive phosphogypsum (PG) in road construction, charging that the agency’s decision unlawfully interprets provisions of the Clean Air Act’s section 112(r). CBD filed a July 11 opening brief in the suit CBD v. EPA, et al. , where it is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to vacate the...

Groups File Second Lawsuit Against LCFS, Focusing On CARB Authority

Environmental groups are filing a second lawsuit to overturn the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) overhaul of its low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS), arguing the board exceeded its authority in adopting rule changes they believe result in unacceptable levels of polluting “factory farm biogas” in the state and across the country. “Despite CARB’s major amendments to existing LCFS regulations and adoption of new regulations, CARB claims nearly unbounded discretion to operate the LCFS without considering the requirements and restrictions imposed by...

Environmentalists Ramp Up Legal Threats Over Gas Facilities’ Air Permits

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is ramping up threats to sue EPA over the agency’s failure to respond to the group’s multiple petitions to object to Colorado air permits for oil and gas processing equipment, part of a major campaign by the environmentalists against what they say are polluting facilities that increase ozone levels. In a series of recent letters to the agency, CBD gives notice of its intent to sue over EPA’s failure to respond to the petitions...

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