On January 17, 2017, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released proposed amendments to SEQRA - the department's first major revisions to such regulations in more than two decades. The proposed amendments follow recent efforts by the DEC...
Administrative Procedures Act – APA
Split Second Circuit Panel Invokes Chevron Doctrine, Reverses Southern District and Reinstates EPA’s Water Transfers Rule
In a 2-1 ruling, the Second Circuit reversed Southern District Judge Kenneth Karas, who had found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) "Water Transfers Rule" was an unreasonable interpretation of the Clean Water Act. Writing for the majority and...
When is Judicial Review Available for an Ongoing Federal Superfund Remediation?
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently declined to consider a case centering on the question of when a citizens' group may challenge an ongoing environmental remediation under the federal Superfund law. The Court's decision lets stand a May 2014 ruling by the Seventh...
D.C. Circuit Gives EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule the Green Light–For Now
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has lifted a nearly three-year-old stay on EPA's Cross State Air Pollution Rule ("CSAPR"), a contentious rule designed to regulate air pollution that is generated in certain states and drifts...
Yet Another Legal Challenge to the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station Fails
A marine transfer station operated on the East River at 91st Street for nearly six decades, temporarily storing municipal waste along the East River before loading it onto barges for disposal outside of Manhattan. But in 2004, the New York City announced plans to...
EPA Authority to Regulate Greenhouse Gases Survives Supreme Court Scrutiny in UARG v. EPA
In environmental law, things aren't always what they seem at first blush. Hence, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 134 S. Ct. 1050 (2014) in June, both industry and EPA claimed victory. Given that the Court struck...
Expanded Clean Water Act Jurisdiction could be Coming ‘Round the River Bend
How easily can a significant expansion in jurisdiction be called just a "clarification" of existing jurisdiction? On April 21, 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers published a proposed rule that promises to...
EPA Announces New Tenant Protections Under Superfund
EPA has just extended to tenants the Bona Fide Prospective Purchaser ("BFPP") protection, by which Congress previously exempted certain prospective owners from harsh Superfund liability. Even where the landlord loses its BFPP protection, the new EPA enforcement...
Beekeepers File Suit Against the EPA Over Controversial Pesticide Registrations
Beginning in the winter of 2006-2007, bees began to die in - or simply disappear from - commercial hives around the US. Increasing numbers of beekeepers since then reported similar disappearances of bees, and the phenomenon became known as Colony Collapse Disorder, or...
Supreme Court Holds That Pre-Enforcement Judicial Review of EPA Administrative Orders Is Allowed
The Supreme Court of the United States has just unanimously ruled that administrative orders issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") under section 319 of the Clean Water Act ("CWA") are "final agency actions" subject to judicial review under the...
