A district court denied Ohio's and Tennessee's motion to preliminarily enjoin EPA's 2015 Clean Water Rule that clarified the definition of "waters of the United States" under the CWA. The states challenged the validity of the rule, arguing it extended the scope of the CWA beyond the reach of the sta...
A district court granted in part and denied in part an environmental group's motion for summary judgment in a challenge to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's (PHMSA's) approval of two spill response plans for an oil pipeline that crosses Michigan's Straits of Mackinac. The ...
A district court granted EPA's motion to dismiss a CWA lawsuit seeking to require the Agency to publish New York's water quality standards. The Agency asserted that environmental groups lacked subject matter jurisdiction to bring the suit because EPA had a discretionary, rather than nondiscretionary...
A district court denied a manufacturing company's motion to dismiss a CWA lawsuit alleging that the company improperly stored and disposed of industrial waste at its sheet metal manufacturing facility. The company argued that an environmental group did not have standing to sue because it failed to n...
The Second Circuit vacated a decision by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation denying a state water quality certification for construction of a natural gas pipeline through northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. The pipeline company argued that the Department's denial...
The D.C. Circuit vacated a FERC decision concerning a licensee's decommissioning plan with reviewing states for hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. A Native American tribe challenged FERC's determination that California and Oregon had not waived their water quality certification authority un...
A district court dismissed a Native American tribe's lawsuit challenging a proposed sulfide mine along the banks of the Menominee River, which forms the border between Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The tribe argued, pursuant to the Act's citizen suit provision, that EPA and the U.S. Army...
The Fourth Circuit vacated the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' verification that construction of a natural gas pipeline could proceed in West Virginia under the terms and conditions of CWA Nationwide Permit (NWP) 12. Environmental groups argued that the Corps improperly incorporated the state's condit...
A district court vacated nationwide the Applicability Date Rule, which suspended the effect of the Clean Water Rule until February 2020 and required agencies in the interim to apply the pre-Clean Water Rule definition of "waters of the United States." Environmental groups argued that EPA and the U.S...
A district court dismissed a challenge to EPA's amendment to the 2015 Effluent Limitations Guidelines Rule, which established new limits and standards for various types of waste streams discharged by steam electric power plants. Environmental groups argued that the amendment violated the ESA and NEP...