The Eleventh Circuit affirmed a lower court decision upholding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 2012 decision to issue a general nationwide permit—NWP 21—authorizing discharges from certain coal mining activities into navigable waters. The 2012 version of NWP 21 contains two new provisions, a g...

A district court ordered EPA to promulgate revised water quality standards for Washington state by September 15, 2016, or, in the alternative, by November 15, 2016, if the state submits its own water quality standards by September 15. A key factor in determining the requisite water quality standards...

The D.C. Circuit, in a 162-page opinion, granted in part and denied in part petitions challenging three EPA rules setting NESHAPs for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers and commercial and industrial solid waste incinerator (CISWI) units. The petitioners brought approximately 30 challe...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's compliance deadlines for states to meet the NAAQS for fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The court previously had ruled that the framework EPA had been applying to PM2.5 was incorrect, and ordered the Agency to apply a stricter statutory framework. EPA then promulgated th...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's decision to invoke its veto authority under CWA §404(c) and withdraw two disposal sites from a CWA permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a mountaintop coal mining project in West Virginia. The areas withdrawn make up roughly 88% of the total discharge a...

The Supreme Court of California held that the state may enter and conduct environmental and geological studies and testing on more than 150 privately owned properties in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that the state might seek to acquire for construction of two new tunnels to deliver fresh water f...