The D.C. Circuit denied states' and industry groups' petitions challenging EPA rules establishing CAA permitting requirements in states that do not have implementation plans for greenhouse gases. The rules were designed to ensure that a permitting authority was available to issue the required greenh...

A California appellate court held that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) violated the California APA and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it adopted its Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS) regulations to reduce the carbon content of transportation fuels sold, supplied, or of...

The Third Circuit upheld an EPA rule imposing sulfur dioxide (S02) limits on a coal-fired power plant in Pennsylvania whose emissions travel directly across a river into areas of New Jersey. The owner of the plant challenged EPA's authority to impose direct regulations on the plant before the time t...

The Tenth Circuit upheld an EPA rule in which it rejected Oklahoma's regional haze plan to limit sulfur dioxide emissions at electric utility power plants and replaced it with its own more stringent regulations via a federal implementation plan (FIP). Petitioners—the state of Oklahoma, the utility...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed an EPA order denying an environmental group's petition to object to a CAA Title V operating permit for a coal-fired power station in Colorado. In its petition for an objection, the group argued that the permit needed to include a plan to bring the power station into compli...

The Seventh Circuit held that the statute of limitations bars EPA's and Illinois' CAA suit against a power company for failing to obtain preconstruction permits and to use best available control technology (BACT) at five coal-fired power plants that were modified prior to it acquiring them in 1999. ...

The D.C. Circuit vacated an EPA rule that deferred regulation of biogenic carbon dioxide—non-fossil-fuel carbon dioxide sources such as ethanol—for three years. Although the "Deferral Rule" is a temporary regulation, it functions, in effect, as a permanent exemption from the PSD permitting requi...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' claims that BLM failed to adequately consider climate change, global warming, and greenhouse gases (GHGs) in violation of NEPA before it approved oil and gas leases on federal land in Montana in 2008 and 2010. The groups argued that BLM's failure to f...