Salmon require cool temperatures to migrate and reproduce. The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires states to develop and implement water quality standards sufficient to produce fishable waters. Nearly a half-century after its 1972 enactment, the modern federal statute’s goal of fishable waters has yet to be achieved in the case of salmon streams.
The D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's Affordable Clean Energy Rule that repealed and replaced the Clean Power Plan as a means of regulating power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. A group of public health petitioners sought review of the rule's conclusion that §7411 of the CAA only permitted emission redu...
The Fifth Circuit denied petitions to review EPA's 2018 redesignation of Bexar County, Texas, from attainment to nonattainment and designation of three neighboring counties as attainment/unclassifiable for 2015 ozone NAAQS. Texas argued EPA only had authority to change the state's recommended design...
The U.S. Supreme Court denied, 8-0, Texas' motion to review a river master's final determination in a long-running dispute over how Texas and New Mexico share water. Texas challenged the river master's determination that New Mexico was entitled to delivery credit for water that evaporated while it w...
The Eighth Circuit affirmed, 2-1, a ruling in favor of a mining company in a challenge to the company's failure to obtain a CAA construction permit for a mine in rural North Dakota. The owners of an adjacent ranch argued that the company failed to obtain the proper permit under the CAA and failed to...
The Fourth Circuit stayed a pipeline company's use of a nationwide permit, verified by the Army Corps of Engineers, to carry out construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in streams and rivers along the pipeline's route. Environmental groups argued the verification was unlawful because the Corps ...
Nearly nine million tons of plastic waste flow into our oceans each year, arriving in many ways—ranging from polluted rivers and waterways to the wastewater from our washing machines. Once in the ocean, this pervasive plastic pollution is nearly impossible to clean up. If there is anything positive to say about such a broad and complex challenge, it is that there are multiple ways to tackle the problem. Legal and policy solutions are increasingly moving away from the piecemeal, product-by-product approach of single-use plastic bans and toward mor
The Montana Supreme Court affirmed vacatur of a Montana Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (MPDES) permit issued by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) for a copper and silver mine in the Cabinet Mountains. Environmental groups argued, among other things, that MDEQ unlawfully ...
The Fourth Circuit granted for a second time an oil refinery's petition to review EPA's decision denying the refinery an exemption from biofuel requirements under the Agency's renewable fuel standard program, and vacated the Agency's decision. The refinery argued that EPA arbitrarily relied on DOE's...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a toxic, environmentally persistent class of chemicals that have been used widely in consumer products. Despite growing evidence of adverse health effects associated with PFAS exposure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has not yet promulgated a legally enforceable standard for any of the individual chemicals in the PFAS group. This has resulted in largely unrestricted disposal of PFAS waste and dispersal of these persistent chemicals throughout the environment.