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On April 10, the D.C. Circuit heard oral argument in an appeal filed by Sierra Club and other environmental groups seeking to force EPA to release utility effluent treatment data that the agency used to inform its Steam Electric Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) rule.  The environmental groups are requesting that the D.C. Circuit overturn the district court’s ruling, which sides with EPA. EPA collected the data from electric utility companies on their wastewater treatment technologies, pollutants, and incremental costs.  The environmental groups plan to use the data to support their appeal of the ELG rule, which is pending in the 5th Circuit.

Among the provisions of President Trump’s March 28, 2017,  Executive Order “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” (the “Executive Order”) is the repeal of President Obama’s November 3, 2015, Presidential Memorandum entitled “Mitigating Impacts on Natural Resources from Development and Encouraging Related Private Investment” (the “Obama Memorandum”).  The Executive Order also directed all agencies to identify “Agency Actions” (existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and other similar agency actions) arising from the Obama Memorandum and, as appropriate, and “as soon as practicable, suspend, revise, or rescind, or publish for notice and comment proposed rules [to do so]…”

In a brief ceremony yesterday, President Trump signed an Executive Order requiring EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review the final “Clean Water Rule,” also known as the  Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule to ensure it is consistent with a new policy also laid out in the order to keep the Nation’s navigable waters free from pollution “while at the same time promoting economic growth, minimizing regulatory uncertainty, and showing due regard for the roles played by Congress and the States under the Constitution.”  Although implementation of the Rule has been stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit pending further court review, the Executive Order also requires EPA and the Corps to review all orders, rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies implementing the Rule and to revise or rescind such rules consistent with the Executive Order.

In a seventy page opinion, Special Master Ralph Lancaster issued his recommendation to the Supreme Court today concluding that Florida had not met its burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence that Georgia should be burdened with a consumption cap on its water use.  Key to the Special Master’s ruling was a finding that because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would not be controlled by any decree of Court, a consumption cap remedy would be ineffectual.  The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) river basin is composed of two major forks, the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee fork that is highly regulated by the Corps in terms of streamflows, and the Flint fork for which there is little to no regulation.

Applying Chevron deference, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on January 18, 2017, reversed the Southern District of New York by a 2-1 margin and concluded that the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (the “EPA”) Water Transfers Rule that permits transfers between waters of the United States without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permit was sound.  (Catskill Mountains Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Inc. et al. v. USEPA, et al., U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, Docket Nos. 14-1823, 14-1909, 14-1991, 14-1997, 14-2003, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 914). The controversy stemmed from the transfer of water from the Schoharie Reservoir through the Shandaken Tunnel into the Esopus Creek in New York.  Historically, the EPA has taken a hands-off approach to water transfers, choosing not to subject them to the requirements of the NPDES permitting program established by the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in 1972.

On January 12, 2017, EPA published a final rule adjusting for inflation the civil monetary penalty amounts for the statutes it administers. This most recent adjustment follows on the heels of a major adjustment finalized in July 2016.  These adjustments are mandated by 2015 revisions to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act.  The new law required agencies to make initial “catch-up” adjustments by July 2016, followed by annual inflation adjustments beginning January 15, 2017.  In the past, EPA only adjusted penalty levels for inflation once every several years.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari today in the long running dispute as to whether the federal district courts or appellate courts have jurisdiction to decide the viability of the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) Rule under the Clean Water Act.  The controversial definitional section proposed for the CWA would expand…

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently upheld the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia’s decision that a West Virginia coal mine was not shielded from Clean Water Act violations where its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit includes a boiler plate provision requiring compliance with applicable water quality standards.  In Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) v. Fola Coal, the Court held that the mining company did not comply with this term of its permit and therefore was not shielded from enforcement under the Clean Water Act’s section 402(k) “permit shield.”

Georgia and Florida filed post-trial briefs in the Florida v. Georgia U.S. Supreme Court litigation on December 15, 2016.  The same day, the United States filed a brief at the request of Special Master Ralph Lancaster addressing what impact, if any, additional flows along the Flint River might have with regard to the operations of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the ACF River Basin.  The United States declined to take a position on whether the consumption cap arguments by Florida were persuasive and limited its brief to the topic of any prejudice to the Corps utilizing existing and anticipated operations plans.  Georgia and Florida supplemented the record on December 29, 2016, with responses to the parties’ previously filed post-trial briefs.