On August 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overruled several orders by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and held that the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) did not waive...more
Today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court re-instated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) 2020 Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 rule (Certification Rule). The Court stayed a decision by the U.S. District...more
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prepares its Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 rule proposal, litigation regarding the 2020 Trump-era rule (Certification Rule) continues. Currently, the issue of whether to...more
On October 21, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California vacated and remanded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2020 Clean Water Act Section 401 final rule (Certification Rule)....more
There has been a longstanding debate about how to apply the one-year time limit on Clean Water Act Section 401 certification decisions. The D.C. Circuit court in Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC, 913 F.3d 1099 (D.C. Cir. 2019)...more
On May 27, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intent to reconsider the Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 final rule issued by the Trump administration in June 2020 (Final Rule)....more
On March 23, the Second Circuit issued its opinion in N.Y. Dep’t of Enviro. Conservation v. FERC, Case No. 19-1610 (i.e., the “Empire Pipeline” case). The case concerns the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC or...more
In 2019, the D.C. Circuit in Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC held that the plain language of Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 establishes a bright-line maximum period of one year for States to act on a request for water quality...more