ELR Citation: 50 ELR 20067
No(s). 16-11950-MLW (D. Mass. Mar 21, 2020) (Wolf, J.)

A district court stayed an environmental group's climate change lawsuit against an oil company concerning a CWA permit for its petroleum storage facility in Massachusetts. The group argued that the permit required the company to consider predictable weather patterns, including flooding and severe storms caused by climate change, and that the company's failure to do so created a risk of imminent harm from the inadvertent discharge of pollutants. The company argued that these claims implicated scientific and policy issues that EPA, not the court, should decide, and thus moved to stay the case until the Agency renewed the permit. The court found that determining permit conditions were at the heart of EPA's authority under the CWA, that the company's consideration of predictable weather patterns raised issues that EPA was better equipped to decide than the courts, and that the Agency's renewal of the permit could render the group's request moot. It therefore allowed the company's motion to stay.