EQT Production Co. v. Department of Environmental Protection
Pennsylvania's highest court held that the $10,000/day civil penalty under the Clean Streams Law does not apply to each day that pollutants leaked from an impoundment remain in the groundwater and then leach into other waters of the Commonwealth. The case arose after the state environmental agency a...
Community-in-Power & Development Ass'n v. Pruitt
A district court ordered EPA to promulgate revised CAA emission standards for nine industrial sectors by October 1, 2021. Environmental groups wanted the overdue rulemakings to be completed within two years, while the Agency requested seven years. The court determined that three and a half years was...
M.L. Johnson Family Properties, LLC v. Zinke
A district court upheld a surface coal mining permit issued to a company even though the cotenant objected to any mining on the property. The company cotenant conveyed the right to enter and surface mine coal to an affiliate, but the other cotenant did not consent to surface mining. Nevertheless, th...
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency
The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's 2012 regional haze rule, which seeks to restore air quality and visibility in certain national parks and wilderness areas to what they would be under natural conditions. The rule requires states to impose best available retrofit technology (BART) on certain stationary p...
Sierra Club v. Environmental Protection Agency
The D.C. Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions concerning EPA's NESHAPs for industrial boilers. The first challenge raised by environmental groups concerned regulations that indirectly control a group of organic pollutants by limiting carbon monoxide emissions as a proxy for the targe...
B&R Resources, LLC v. Department of Environmental Protection
A Pennsylvania appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court's decision that the owner of an oil and gas company should be liable for failing to plug 47 abandoned oil and gas wells located in Erie and Crawford Counties. The state environmental agency issued an administrative order requiring th...