Chesapeake Bay Foundation v. Severstal Sparrows Point, LLC
A district court held that environmental groups may pursue a RCRA claim against the current and former owners of a steel mill for disposing of hazardous waste without a permit, but dismissed the groups' remaining RCRA and CWA claims. The groups' claims that the mill has released and continues t...
Sierra Club v. Jackson
The D.C. Circuit upheld the dismissal of a CAA citizen suit challenging EPA's failure to take action to prevent the construction of three proposed pollution-emitting facilities in Kentucky. The lower court held that there was no mandatory duty to act and granted EPA's motion to dismiss for lack...
Natural Resources Defense Council v. Environmental Protection Agency
The D.C. Circuit vacated an EPA guidance document addressing obligations of regions still in nonattainment of the 1997 one-hour ozone NAAQS. The guidance binds EPA regional directors and thus qualifies as final agency action. As such, it amounts to a legislative rule issued in violation of the ...
Natural Resources Defense Council v. South Coast Air Quality Management District
The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of an environmental group's CAA claim challenging an air quality district's method for offsetting emissions increases in its new source review permit program. The district's regulation, contained in the state's EPA-approved SIP, requires that most increase...
Center for Biological Diversity v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
A district court held that EPA need not issue endangerment findings under the CAA for marine vessels and nonroad vehicles and engines, but it denied the Agency's motion to dismiss environmental groups' request for an endangerment finding with respect to aircraft engines. EPA argued that the CAA prov...
MDL-1824 Tri-State Water Rights Litigation
The Eleventh Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may allocate storage water in Lake Lanier, a reservoir created in 1956 by the completion of Buford Dam on the Chattahoochee River, for water supply. A lower court ruled that the Corps' current operation of the Buford Project—Buford Da...