Conservatives usually allied with the Trump administration are considering filing a data quality petition to force officials to withdraw or correct their recently released National Climate Assessment (NCA), charging it is flawed, undercuts the president's pledges to reexamine climate science and will drive suits to force regulatory action.
Trump administration talking points on the imminent Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule suggest EPA will pursue what an environmentalist attorney calls a “combo” of two competing Supreme Court tests for determining the law's scope, drawing on both to produce a jurisdiction standard potentially even narrower than expected.
EPA's final rule to “close-out” the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program offers a broad defense of the agency's policy on reducing interstate air pollution that could help it defend the close-out rule from legal attacks, and that it might also use in ongoing suits aiming to force stricter EPA rules on the pollution.
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are planning to unveil their proposed rule to narrow the Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction standard at a Dec. 11 EPA headquarters event, says an informed source, marking a long-awaited step that will set the terms for the next round of litigation over the proper scope of the water law.
More than a dozen states are opposing environmentalists' lawsuit that seeks to compel EPA to reverse course and set Superfund financial requirements for the hardrock mining sector, with state officials warning that an EPA rule would preempt state mandates and prompt a flood of lawsuits threatening billions of dollars in cleanup assurances that states hold.
A new appellate court ruling that says EPA-led Superfund cleanup actions are “discretionary” and exempt from the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) could bolster the agency's defense against suits that seek restitution for damage caused by cleanups, including ongoing litigation over the 2015 Gold King Mine spill caused by an EPA cleanup.
Environmentalists are citing the high court's recent unanimous ruling granting judicial review of certain Endangered Species Act (ESA) decisions to preserve their suit challenging the Trump EPA's policy barring its science advisors from receiving agency grants, days before a federal court is slated to hear arguments on whether the suit should be dismissed.
The White House has completed its review of EPA's final rule to wind down the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, while legal fights over interstate air pollution are ramping up.
EPA and a Colorado River tribal government are defending a Resource Conservation & Recovery Act permit for carbon regeneration against a facility’s complex legal challenge.
