Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 21st, 2012
The Sackett decision is out. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court voted 9-0 to hold that EPA’s order directing the Sacketts to remove fill material from a disputed wetlands area was final, ripe, and immediately reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act. Justice Scalia wrote the relatively short opinion, which focused entirely on the finality question under [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 1st, 2012
Last week, Supreme Court Westchester County (the nisi prius level of the New York court system) threw out the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s general permit for municipal stormwater systems. A copy of the opinion can be downloaded here. NRDC and several Waterkeeper environmental groups challenged the general permits on the grounds that they essentially [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 12th, 2012
A state administrative case we’ve been watching addresses the question whether an egg farm can be required to get a Clean Water Act NPDES permit for discharges of chicken feathers and litters into the air through its ventilation exhaust fans. The North Carolina DENR initially required a permit for the emissions from Rose Acre Farms, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 9th, 2012
The transcript from today’s SCOTUS argument in Sackett v. EPA is out. Sackett is a landowner challenging an EPA CWA § 309 Administrative Compliance Order that directed him to cease wetlands fill activities and restore wetlands on his lot, where he was building a residence. The lower courts held (consistent with all other circuits) that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Nov 10th, 2011
Energy and Environment News this week reported on a letter from the GOP congressional leadership urging EPA to scrap its proposed Waters of the United States guidance document, noticed for public comment last May. No surprises there. The proposed guidance takes the view that the scope of jurisdictional waters of the United States (and wetlands) [...]
Posted in Emerging Issues, Litigation and Dispute Resolution on Nov 4th, 2011
by Daniel E. Estrin Supervising Attorney, Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic, Inc. Adjunct Professor of Law, Pace Law School The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit last month issued two well-reasoned and important opinions regarding the enforcement and application of federal environmental statutes. First, on October 3, 2011, the court considered federal court abstention [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 14th, 2011
While the Deepwater Horizon spill has been out of the headlines for a year, oil continues to bleed into the Gulf of Mexico from many other drill rigs. Waterkeeper Alliance and several Gulf Coast Waterkeeper organizations have just given notice of their intent to sue one drilling rig, once owned by Taylor Energy (and since [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 6th, 2011
Clean Water Act § 316(b) requires facilities that discharge waste heat (primarily thermal electric steam generating power plants) to use the “Best Technology Available” (BTA) for minimizing or avoiding adverse environmental impact. The primary impact of these facilities is the impingement and entrainment of billions of fish and aquatic organisms annually in the cooling water [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Sep 28th, 2011
One of the bedrock principles of environmental federalism is that States may always choose to impose stricter, more protective standards than the federal agency might choose for the same activity. One of the key means by which environmental federalism is implemented for water quality standards is the Clean Water Act § 401 certification requirement for [...]
Posted in Academia, Reseach and Discovery on Apr 1st, 2011
by Daniel E. Estrin Supervising Attorney, Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic Adjunct Professor of Law, Pace Law School In this age of partisan warfare, of politicians voting strictly along party lines, and of misguided efforts to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency and environmental regulation as we know it, it’s fascinating to look back and revisit the passage of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments [...]
