The Third Circuit upheld EPA's TMDL plan for the Chesapeake Bay against challenges from farmer and home building groups. The TMDL—the largest ever developed by EPA—identifies necessary pollution reductions of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment across Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, V...

The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition challenging an NPDES permit authorizing oil and gas exploration facilities' discharge of 13 waste streams into the Beaufort Sea. The petition was filed by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, which represents Alaska Native villages tha...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' CWA citizen suit against EPA for failing to respond in writing to their administrative petition seeking withdrawal of West Virginia's NPDES permit program, but held that the groups may go forward with their claim that the Agency's failure to timely re...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE's) approval of oil spill response plans for an oil company's leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas on Alaska's Arctic coast. Several environmental groups claimed that BSEE's approval was arbitrary and capricious un...

The Tenth Circuit held the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not violate NEPA, the CWA, or nationwide permit (NWP) 12 when it allowed an energy company to build a 485-mile oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas under the general permit. The pipeline, part of a larger network of pipelines to transport oi...

The D.C. Circuit held that energy companies lack standing to challenge EPA's determination that carbon dioxide (CO2) streams injected into Class VI wells for the purpose of geologic sequestration constitute "solid waste" subject to RCRA. Class VI wells are designated to receive CO2 streams generated...

The D.C. Circuit held that a home builders' association lacked standing to challenge EPA's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' determination that two reaches of the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona constitute "traditional navigable waters" (TNW) under the CWA. The court previously held in a si...

A Maryland appellate court affirmed a lower court decision remanding a stormwater management permit that the state's environmental agency issued to a county. The permit did not fall short for failing to hold the county to state water quality standards, as urged by an environmental group challenging ...

A district court, on remand from the First Circuit, dismissed environmental groups' CWA claim against the operators of four hydroelectric dams along the Kennebec River. The groups alleged that the operators are in violation of their water quality certifications, and thus the CWA, because they failed...

A district court granted summary judgment in favor of a coal company, thereby dismissing environmental groups' CWA claim that the company violated its NPDES permit. The dispute centered on the parties' competing interpretations of a boilerplate condition of all of the company's NPDES permits that pr...