The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently teamed up to enforce air and energy laws in a case involving both civil and criminal allegations under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and Federal Power Act. This marks the first criminal prosecution under the Federal Power Act.

On February 17, EPA publicly released its anticipated second round of proposed area designations under the 1-Hour SO₂ standard.  The proposed designations and technical support documents underlying the recommendations are available here.

On Tuesday, February 9, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of the Clean Power Plan based on applications filed by a broad coalition of states, the coal industry, the utility industry, and chambers of commerce. The parties filed the applications after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied similar motions.

On July 28, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that EPA’s Cross State Air Pollution Rule (“CSAPR”) over-regulates over a dozen states.  Although the rule was generally upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014, the Court remanded the case to the D.C. Circuit for further review in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.  In particular, the Supreme Court’s remand to the D.C. Circuit allowed petitioners the opportunity to bring as-applied challenges to CSAPR to demonstrate that the rule regulated emissions beyond the point necessary to bring all downwind states into attainment with the national ambient air quality standards (“NAAQS”).

On June 12, EPA published its final SSM SIP Call recalling EPA-approved state air rules governing emissions associated with startup, shutdown and malfunction events at regulated facilities in 36 states.  The list of affected states is posted on EPA’s website here.  Some of these state rules have been approved and on the books for decades, while others were approved by EPA just within the last several years.  EPA is giving the affected states until November 22, 2016 to revise their SIPs and submit any new provisions to EPA for review and approval.

On Wednesday, EPA announced a relatively unsurprising move with respect to its trio of rules designed to reduce power plant emissions of greenhouse gases—a delay.  Instead of early June, EPA says to expect the final rules (all three of them) at the ambiguous time of “summer,” which theoretically could extend into September.

The Decision.   On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and remanded the D.C. Circuit’s 2012 decision that vacated EPA’s Cross-State Rule.  The decision was 6-2 with Justices Scalia and Thomas dissenting.  Justice Alito had recused himself from this case and therefore did not participate in the decision.

On April 15, 2014, one year and one day before the compliance deadline, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit fully upheld EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS).  As a result, all existing coal- and oil-fired  electric utility units will be required to meet specific, numeric emission limits for mercury, particulate matter, and acid gases next year.