A district court held that it lacks jurisdiction over Oklahoma's lawsuit against EPA challenging its proposed emission standards for coal-fired power plants. The state argues that the proposed emission standards, if adopted as a final rule, would constitute an ultra vires action in violation of the ...

The D.C. Circuit, on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, invalidated EPA's 2014 emissions budgets under the transport rule, also known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, as applied to various states. The CAA's "good neighbor" provision requires upwind states to prevent sources within their borde...

The D.C. Circuit denied petitions challenging an EPA regulation that revised the NESHAP for hexavalent chromium, a carcinogenic compound that gets emitted into the air during the chrome-finishing process. The new rule, issued in 2012, imposes more stringent emissions limitations than its predecessor...

A California court issued a temporary restraining order preventing the state water board from enforcing "curtailment letters" it sent to four irrigation districts in the Central Valley. The letters ordered the districts and various farmers and businesses to stop diverting water from California's riv...

The D.C. Circuit upheld an EPA regulation that requires automobile manufacturers to use "commercially available" fuel when testing the emissions of new vehicles under the CAA. Several producers of E30, a fuel that contains 30% ethanol, argued that a fuel shouldn't have to be commercially available i...

A district court dismissed Pennsylvania's public nuisance, trespass, and Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practice and Consumer Protection Law claims against various refiners, manufacturers, marketers, distributors, and suppliers of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive. The case is part ...

A district court ordered Oklahoma to file a brief by July 16 explaining why the court should have jurisdiction over the state's lawsuit challenging EPA's proposed "Clean Power Plan" to reduce carbon dioxide emissions on a nationwide basis. Numerous states, including Oklahoma, recently filed a case i...

A Colorado court upheld a city's decision to create a local electric utility. An electric company argued that the city council exceeded its authority when it created the utility. But the company missed the 28-day deadline for challenging quasi-judicial decisions. When the city declared that the cond...

A Washington court ordered the state's environmental agency to reconsider its denial of youths' petition asking the agency to adopt rulemaking to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in accordance with the best available science. The youths had also petitioned the agency to recommend to the state le...

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded EPA's rule limiting hazardous air pollutant emissions from power plants, holding that the Agency interpreted CAA §112(n)(1)(A) unreasonably when it deemed cost irrelevant to the decision to regulate power plants. CAA §112(n)(1) directs EPA to regulate e...