Ecological Rights Foundation v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
A district court dismissed CWA claims brought by an environmental group seeking to compel an electric company to obtain NPDES permits for its facilities. The group alleged that activities conducted at the facilities and the materials stored there contaminate stormwater discharged from the sites. Whi...
Sonoma v. Federal Housing Finance Agency
The Ninth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit challenging a Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) directive that prevents Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from buying mortgages on properties encumbered by liens made under property-assessed clean energy (PACE) programs, which finance environmental improvements on ...
Paolino v. JF Realty
The First Circuit held that a lower court erred in dismissing a landowner's CWA citizen suit for lack of proper pre-suit notice. The landowner filed suit against the neighboring property owner—an automobile salvage and recycling business—for discharging pollutants into U.S. waters without a vali...
Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center
The U.S. Supreme Court held that stormwater runoff from logging roads that is collected by and then discharged from a system of ditches, culverts, and channels is not a point source discharge for which an NPDES permit is required. An environmental group filed suit claiming that the Oregon forestry d...