A district court held that the applicable legal test for the "routine maintenance, repair, and replacement" exclusions found in the Clean Air Act (CAA) should be applied to activities that are considered "routine in the industry" rather than "routine at the unit." In a CAA enforcement action filed a...

A district court denied motions for summary judgment on states' claims that an electric utility modified one of its coal-fired power plants in violation of the prevention of signnificant deterioration (PSD) permitting requirements set forth in Clean Air Act §165(a). The court held that the rout...

A district court held that the Clean Air Act (CAA) does not preempt a local air district rule that requires developers to reduce nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions from their projects or to pay a fee to offset such emissions. The rule is not a standard subject to CAA §209. It neith...

The Seventh Circuit upheld a lower court order enjoining a power company from building a coal-fired power plant without first obtaining a new prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit from the state of Illinois. The state's environmental agency granted the company a PSD permit in 2001. Th...

A district court dismissed a county's lawsuit against a railroad company for allowing its locomotive engines to idle in violation of state air pollution law. This case involves railcars, the fumes they emit, and the tracks they use. Accordingly, its falls under the umbrella of federal regulatory aut...

The Eighth Circuit upheld as moot a lower court decision denying a hunting club's motion to preliminarily enjoin a power company from constructing a 600-megawatt pulverized coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County, Arkansas, without first obtaining a prevention of significant deterioration permit ...

The D.C. Circuit denied an environmental group's petition for review of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air quality regulations governing the exclusion of emissions data from state reporting requirements during exceptional events such as natural disasters. The rule allows states to list s...

A district court held that environmental groups' citizen suit against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for violating the Clean Air Act, the Tennessee state implementation plan, and related regulations in conjunction with its operation of coal-fired power plant in Bull Run, Tennessee, must procee...

The Court reversed the Fourth Circuit's grant of summary judgment in favor of a coal-fired power plant operator charged with violating the Clean Air Act's (CAA's) prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) regulations. The CAA's PSD and new source performance standards (NSPS) provisions both cove...

The Second Circuit upheld the dismissal of rescue, search, and cleanup workers' substantive due process complaint against federal officials for knowingly issuing false statements about air quality safety in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center. The wor...