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The Clean Water Act TMDL Program V: Aftershock and Prelude

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of redesigning the Clean Water Act's (CWA's) total maximum daily load (TMDL) program. Section 303 of the Act requires states and, if necessary, EPA to: (1) identify waters that do not meet water quality standards; (2) establish the TMDLs for pollutants discharged into these waters that will achieve these standards; and (3) incorporate these loads into state planning. These are of course the classic steps of ambient-based water quality management.

A Job Half Finished: The Clean Water Act After 25 Years

Congress passed the Clean Water Act on October 4, 1972, by overwhelming margins—unanimously in the Senate and with a bare 11 dissenters in the House of Representatives. Rising on the Senate floor that day a full quarter-century ago, Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Me.), chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution and leader of the Senate's clean water forces, explained with simple gravity why Congress was about to pass by such large margins such a powerful and unprecedented law:

Environmental Defense Fund v. Alexander

The court refuses to enjoin continued construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and rules that plaintiffs are barred by res judicata and collateral estoppel from challenging defendants for alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Fish and Wildlife Coordination A...

Fund for Animals v. Espy

The court holds that a nonprofit organization has standing to seek a preliminary injunction to prevent the implementation of a research study by the Department of Agriculture (DOA) on the transmission of brucellosis from wild bison in Yellowstone National Park to cattle outside the park without DOA ...

New York, City of v. Mineta

The court holds that the Secretary of Transportation did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (AIR21) in granting take-off and landing slots to airlines servicing New York's Kennedy and LaGuardia Airpo...

Greater Yellowstone Coalition v. Bosworth

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service (Forest Service) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Rescissions Act by reissuing a permit for livestock grazing in the Gallatin National Forest without first conducting a NEPA review. In 1994, the Forest Service implemented a po...

Hodges v. Abraham

The court holds that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complied with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in connection with its transfer of surplus plutonium from Colorado to South Carolina. DOE argued that the governor of South Carolina, who filed suit against DOE, lacked standing becaus...

West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, Inc. v. Norton

The court affirms in part and vacates in part a district court's award of attorney fees to environmental groups that sought to rescind new mining permits issued to a company that owned a mine in violation of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The U.S. Department of the Interior'...

Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Bureau of Land Management

The Ninth Circuit held that the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) environmental assessments (EAs) for two timbers sales in the Cascade Mountains in Oregon violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The EAs do not sufficiently identify or discuss the incremental impact that can be expec...

Idaho Sporting Congress v. U.S. Forest Serv.

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service's (Forest Service's) decision to allow certain salvage timber sales was exempt from administrative appeal pursuant to regulations in effect before the enactment of the Appeals Reform Act (ARA). The regulation at 36 C.F.R. §217.4 provided that decisions ...