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Winning by losing. The strategy of the NIMBYs and others trying to thwart wind energy.

3 1 8 Allie Reed of Bloomberg Law has published a thought-provoking piece on the effect of legal challenges to offshore wind projects and the Justice Department's and developers' responses to those challenges. Some of...more

EPA's explanation that PFAS are unsafe in minute concentrations is turning out to have serious ramifications for many, including...

Lara Beaven of Inside PFAS Policy reports that Maine farmers have joined litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency for not yet regulating the presence of PFAS in sewage sludge. The plaintiffs in that litigation...more

Reading about failed turbine blades & "alkalinity enhancement"? Well we've dealt ourselves a lousy climate hand and don't have the...

Two Boston Globe stories I read this weekend on the rapidly shrinking island of Nantucket this weekend are worthy of your attention.    The first story is about EPA's consideration of a plan to intentionally dump 6600...more

The Supreme Court's Corner Post opinion is another blow to the Executive Branch of our Federal Government, changing everything we...

Just when Federal agencies and Administrative Law Professors thought it couldn't get any worse, the current majority of our nation's highest court on Monday released a third opinion in less than a week further diminishing the...more

Whenever this Supreme Court agrees to review a 9th Circuit interpretation of a law, the outcome is nearly certain. This NEPA case...

This morning our nation's highest court agreed to hear an appeal by seven Utah Counties and a railroad company of a DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision. That DC Circuit decision revoked the Surface Transportation Board's...more

EPA and the Corps have won one in North Carolina but their most recent Waters of the United States rule isn't nearly out of the...

Judge Boyle of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina has denied the Pacific Legal Foundation's client an injunction against EPA's and the Corps of Engineers' most recent Waters of the United...more

The North Atlantic Right Whales deserve our best effort to save them, and the high-speed ferry plan doesn't seem to be that.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is pressing ahead with its plan to ban Fast Ferries between the Massachusetts mainland and Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket between November 1st and May 30.  I first wrote...more

Brian McGrory has a good point about the resolution of the Nantucket Clam Shack NIMBY controversy, but there's another lesson to...

Some of you may recall my earlier reports on Nantucket NIMBYs' efforts to deny local Chef Gabriel Frasca the opportunity to deliver fried food and soft ice cream to the Island's residents and visitors. These legal challenges...more

These Environmental NGOs should stick to trying to end the climate crisis and not stoke skepticism about our justice system.

I was sad to see the Law 360 report that a coalition of environmental and human rights NGOs have petitioned President Biden to pardon former attorney Steven Donzinger who was jailed for criminal contempt of court in 2021,...more

A Louisiana Judge may strike down another EPA Clean Water Act regulation and the Supreme Court would likely see it the same way.

Several “red” states and three energy industry NGOs have filed a motion for summary judgment in their Louisiana Federal Court challenge to EPA's 2023 rule regarding the state water quality certifications required under...more

Life's tragedy is we get old too soon and wise too late. Words that are going to be ringing in EPA's ears after its next visit to...

As predicted in February, our nation's highest court is about to hear its third Clean Water Act in four years.  Anyone who doubts the outcome of this case hasn't read the other two Supreme Court opinions and that brings to...more

Clean Energy Developers Beware! EPA will prosecute you for runoff from your solar farm sites.

EPA issued a press release yesterday that caught my eye and if you're in the business of building things, including solar projects, it is worthy of your attention too. The press release announces a settlement between a solar...more

When it comes to our urgent need for meaningful climate resilience, time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future!

Over the weekend The Boston Globe reported on the uniquely unfortunate situation in which the City of Boston finds itself as our oceans rise and coastal storms become more intense. You can always count on me to pass along...more

EPA's heart may be in the right place but it is cruisin' for a bruisin' in San Francisco

This week our nation's highest court was scheduled to discuss whether to hear the City and County of San Francisco's appeal of a split Ninth Circuit decision upholding an EPA NPDES permit issued to the City and County...more

EPA may avoid a nationwide injunction against its most recent WOTUS rule, but the rule is still in hot water.

Sam Hess of Inside EPA has a fulsome report on EPA's everything but the kitchen sink attempt to avoid a nationwide freeze of its most recent definition of Waters of the United States in litigation filed by a North Carolina...more

ACK RAT's attempt to kill the Vineyard Wind Project ended exactly as we knew it would -- in defeat -- but not without damage.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has finally ended the Nantucket Residents Against Turbines' lawsuit against the United States Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the...more

EPA has now listed two PFAS as Hazardous Substances under CERCLA. Hold onto your hats., Jeff Porter

Less than ten days after setting drinking water standards for six of the hundreds of chemicals known collectively as PFAS, EPA has now identified two of those PFAS that have been widely used for decades, PFOA and PFOS, as...more

EPA & the Army Corps of Engineers have less ability to protect wetlands than they've had in 40 years but Florida still isn't...

We're approaching the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Sackett v. EPA holding that, contrary to the view of EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers for the past 40 years, the Clean Water Act protects only...more

Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco but the City's appeal of its NPDES permit is on its way to the United States...

Juan-Carlos Rodriguez is reporting on DOJ's and EPA's brief arguing that the Supreme Court should leave alone a split Ninth Circuit decision upholding a NPDES permit condition prohibiting the permittee, the City and County of...more

EPA's Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention Rule will almost certainly be challenged and EPA is the underdog in the...

EPA picked another Clean Water Act fight with the United States Supreme Court last week and I don't understand why EPA thinks it is a fight it can win. As many of you know, the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act is...more

Governor Abbott says Texas isn't bound by the oldest Federal environmental law. He's about to learn what he should have learned in...

Law 360 is reporting on yesterday's hearing in the United States' litigation against the State of Texas to cause the removal of an unpermitted “marine barrier” placed by the State of Texas in the Rio Grande River. Putting...more

The Sacketts' lawyers have a new client and it seems like a visit to the Supreme Court is in their future!

Last August, when EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers published their tenth attempt to determine the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act, the Agencies said that regulation involved no exercise of discretion because it...more

My Mom would say that, when it comes to PFAS, the Judicial Panel on Multi District Litigation's eyes were bigger than its stomach!

A little over five years ago, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation gave Federal Judge Richard Gergel of South Carolina the burden of disposing of any cases “alleg[ing] that AFFF products used at airports, military...more

The DoD has played a card that only it has in the AFFF litigation but it won't get it out of PFAS purgatory

Lara Beaven, of Inside PFAS Policy, has an excellent report on the Defense Department's motion to dismiss claims for injunctive relief against the military in the AFFF multi-district litigation continuing before Federal...more

The City and County of San Francisco are about to deliver EPA & the Ninth Circuit their 3rd consecutive Clean Water Act defeat in...

The United States Supreme Court isn't done with the Clean Water Act and EPA's interpretation of it. This month the City and County of San Francisco asked the nation's highest court to overturn a split Ninth Circuit Court of...more

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