On 17 April 2024, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new Strategic Civil-Criminal Enforcement Policy designed to improve collaboration between its civil and criminal enforcement offices, with the goal of...more
Responding to the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Sackett v. EPA, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) published a final rule (Sackett Rule), effective 8 September...more
It is rare for the U.S. Supreme Court to construe a statutory phrase on multiple occasions. And yet now, for purposes of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA or the Act), it has rendered no less than four interpretations of the...more
On 30 December 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) (together, the Agencies) released a final rule redefining the scope of waters protected under the Clean Water Act...more
On 30 August 2021, Judge Rosemary Márquez, a federal district judge in the District of Arizona, ordered the remand and vacatur of the Trump administration’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR) defining “waters of the...more
Last month the Trump Administration announced a proposed rule that would dramatically reduce the scope of federal authority under the Clean Water Act (“Act”). If finalized in its current form, the rule would eliminate federal...more
On June 26, 2018, in one of his final acts as Administrator of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), Scott Pruitt issued a memorandum that has set in motion a process to amend the regulations that govern the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently issued a significant decision addressing the interplay between a confidentiality provision in the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), known as “Exemption 4,” and a...more
In a rebuke to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”), the United States Supreme Court unanimously held on May 31, 2016, in Corps v. Hawkes that jurisdictional determinations (“JDs”) under the Clean Water Act are...more
On October 9, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a stay of the Obama Administration’s new rule defining the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The stay postpones...more
On July 6, 2015, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously rejected a challenge brought by agricultural and builder groups to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Chesapeake Bay...more
7/16/2015
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Agricultural Land ,
Chesapeake Bay ,
Chevron Deference ,
Clean Water Act ,
Compliance ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Farm Bureau ,
Farms ,
Industrial Discharges ,
Municipalities ,
NPDES ,
Sediment Control ,
TMDL ,
Wastewater ,
Watershed
On May 27, 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) jointly released a final rule (the “Clean Water Rule”) redefining the scope of their shared jurisdiction under...more
On March 25, 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) jointly released a long-awaited proposed rulemaking that would redefine the scope of their shared jurisdiction...more