A district court stayed a constitutional challenge to the Washington Department of Ecology's decision to deny a coal company a CWA §401 certification for construction of a coal export facility along the Columbia River. The company argued that the Department violated the Commerce Clause by denying t...

A district court denied an offshore drilling platform operator's motion to reconsider the court's previous ruling that barred the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from issuing offshore drilling permits until it conducted further environmental review. Conservation groups had argued that BOEM'...

The Fifth Circuit vacated portions of a 2015 EPA rule that set new effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) for legacy wastewater and combustion residual leachate that are discharged from steam electric power plants. Environmental groups argued that the Agency arbitrarily set the ELGs using an older, l...

A state high court affirmed a lower court's summary judgment for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in a challenge to the Department's issuance of a NPDES general permit for discharges from municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s). An environmental group challenged the permit, argu...

A district court granted Washington's and environmental groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to the state's decision to deny a coal company a CWA §401 certification for construction of a coal export facility along the Columbia River. A railroad company, which planned to provide rail s...

A district court denied Ohio's and Tennessee's motion to preliminarily enjoin EPA's 2015 Clean Water Rule that clarified the definition of "waters of the United States" under the CWA. The states challenged the validity of the rule, arguing it extended the scope of the CWA beyond the reach of the sta...

A district court granted in part and denied in part an environmental group's motion for summary judgment in a challenge to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's (PHMSA's) approval of two spill response plans for an oil pipeline that crosses Michigan's Straits of Mackinac. The ...

A district court vacated a provision of President Trump's 2017 Executive Order that reopened Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi seas and canyon areas in the Atlantic Ocean to oil and gas exploration. Environmental groups argued the president did not have authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands ...

A district court granted EPA's motion to dismiss a CWA lawsuit seeking to require the Agency to publish New York's water quality standards. The Agency asserted that environmental groups lacked subject matter jurisdiction to bring the suit because EPA had a discretionary, rather than nondiscretionary...

A district court denied a manufacturing company's motion to dismiss a CWA lawsuit alleging that the company improperly stored and disposed of industrial waste at its sheet metal manufacturing facility. The company argued that an environmental group did not have standing to sue because it failed to n...