The Seventh Circuit dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging EPA's decision not to object to Wisconsin's renewal of a Title V permit for a pre-1975 paper mill. Under the CAA's PSD program, emissions from pre-1975 sources count as part of the emissions baseline and not toward the overal...

A district court ordered an environmental group to pay $6.4 million in attorney fees in a citizen suit it filed against the owners of a Texas coal-fired power plant for alleged CAA violations. Below, the court dismissed the group's claims that the plant violated the Act's particulate matter (PM) and...

The Ninth Circuit vacated and remanded EPA's decision to issue a PSD permit allowing a power company to build and operate a 600 megawatt natural gas-fired power plant. EPA missed the one-year statutory deadline to grant or deny the permit; during this same period, EPA tightened the applicable air qu...

A district court held that a group of residents may go forward with their state tort law claims against a Kentucky power plant. The residents alleged that the plant emits dust and coal ash into the air and onto their homes and properties several times a month. According to the residents, not only ar...

A district court held that EPA failed to set emissions standards for hazardous air pollutants under CAA §112(c)(6) in violation of prior court orders. In 2006 and 2011, the court ordered EPA to take action by a date certain to ensure its compliance with §112(c)(6), in a manner reviewable by the co...

The Ninth Circuit upheld EPA's approval of Nevada's SIP for regional haze. In the SIP, Nevada provided reasonable progress goals for attaining natural visibility conditions at the Jarbridge Wilderness Area in remote northeastern Nevada, the state’s only Class I federal area. The SIP further requir...

The D.C. Circuit upheld a $72 million judgment against an automobile manufacturer for violating a consent decree requiring certain model year 2005 engines to comply with EPA’s model-year 2006 nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions standard. In 1998, EPA alleged that several major engine manufacturers viol...

The Fifth Circuit held that notices of violations EPA sent to two power plant operators for alleged CAA violations were not "final agency action" and, hence, not subject to judicial review. In the notices, EPA claimed that the operators violated the Act's PSD provisions in connection with certain ph...

The D.C. Circuit held that environmental groups lacked standing to challenge an EPA memo issued to regional directors in response to an earlier court decision vacating the Agency's 2011 Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (the "transport rule"), which sets sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions lim...