The Seventh Circuit upheld a dredge and fill permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a highway project that crosses wetlands in Indiana. The Corps adequately considered practicable alternatives when it issued the permit. Although the Corps has an independent responsibility to enforce t...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing a conservation group's CWA citizen suit alleging that a scrap metal company violated California's general NPDES permit for industrial stormwater at three of its scrap recycling facilities. The lower court dismissed the case, holding that C...

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...

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...