Lara Beaven, the excellent reporter on all things having to do with the Clean Water Act at Inside EPA, shares what we might expect from EPA and the Supreme Court of the United States in the year just beginning as the longest...more
News this morning that fuel spills from a Navy depot on the Big Island of Hawaii are allegedly polluting the Island's water supply. This may sound familiar. Just last year, the United States Supreme Court told Guam that it...more
The Sacketts of Idaho want the Supreme Court of the United States to intervene on their behalf for a second time. Now, just weeks before the ten year anniversary of the Sackett's first successful trip to the Supreme Court,...more
The Dean of Environmental Law bloggers, Seth Jaffe, does me the honor of a thoughtful response to my concern about whether EPA's and the Army Corps of Engineers' proposed definition of Waters of the United States, and...more
EPA has published its most recent proposed definition of "Waters of the United States" with an eye toward finalizing that definition next year in time for the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act.
Before I get to the...more
Traveling the long and winding road to Hana in Maui is one of the most beautiful experiences one can have in the United States. I'm not sure anyone would say the same thing about the long and winding litigation road taken to...more
The County of Maui had another day in court this week, this time pleading with Federal District Judge Mollway to reconsider her renewed decision that the discharge of treated effluent from the Maui waste water treatment...more
Yesterday a split three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that a clay manufacturer is entitled to a new trial of Federal Clean Water Act claims against it because the District Court had instructed...more
Friday, a Federal District Court Judge in California joined most other Federal District Court Judges in concluding that EPA's Clean Water Act regulations should not be vacated while EPA considers how it might revise them. ...more
EPA's post-Maui statement on the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act has joined other regulations and guidance applying the Clean Water Act from the Obama and Trump Administrations on the ash heap of history.
It is...more
News this morning that an Arizona Federal District Court Judge has done what many of us expected would happen eventually -- purport to strike down the Trump Administration's regulation establishing the reach of the Federal...more
Yesterday, the Sacketts of Idaho were handed their most recent litigation defeat by a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In ruling against the Sacketts the panel held that Justice Kennedy's 2006...more
Late yesterday, Federal Judge Susan Oki Mollway, of the District of Hawaii, ruled that the County of Maui needs a Federal Clean Water Act NPDES permit for its groundwater discharge of treated water from its waste water...more
The United States Supreme Court’s April 23 decision in County of Maui v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-260_i4dk.pdf) proves that legislating is best done by the Congress, not the...more
4/24/2020
/ Appeals ,
Clean Water Act ,
Direct Discharge ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Functional Equivalent ,
Groundwater ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Navigable Waters ,
Permits ,
Point Sources ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Vacated ,
Waters of the United States
You don’t see a unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court very often, especially in an environmental case, but that’s what happened this week when the Court held that for an area to be “critical habitat” of an...more
12/3/2018
/ Conservation ,
Critical Habitat ,
Economic Impact Analysis ,
Endangered Species ,
Endangered Species Act (ESA) ,
ESA Listings ,
Judicial Review ,
Private Property ,
SCOTUS ,
US Fish and Wildlife Service ,
Weyerhaeuser Company v United States Fish and Wildlife Service