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Mealey's Pollution Liability

  • October 06, 2025

    High Court Denies Ohio’s Petition In CWA Pipeline Permitting Process Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 6 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the state of Ohio that asked for clarification of the time frame to waive responses to proposed projects affecting state waters under the Clean Water Act (CWA) permitting application process and a determination regarding whether states lose their abilities to protect their waters if they fail to participate in the process.

  • October 06, 2025

    Ohio Says Norfolk Southern Is Strictly Liable For Train Derailment Injuries

    YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Ohio has moved in Ohio federal court for partial summary judgment that Norfolk Southern Corp. is strictly liable for discharging waste and toxins into the state’s air, land and water as a result of the train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, Ohio in 2023.  Separately, the state filed a response to Norfolk Southern’s motion for partial summary judgment, arguing that “the undisputed facts and applicable law are clear that Defendants are not entitled to summary judgment.”

  • October 06, 2025

    Illinois Federal Judge Issues Discovery Motions Order In CERCLA Oil Refinery Case

    EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge issued rulings on cross-motions to compel discovery for documents related to litigation in a similar case and insurance filings, among other things in a refinery owner’s case against several oil companies alleging violations of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act over environmental contamination.

  • October 02, 2025

    Ga. Federal Judge Grants, Denies Class Certification In Drinking Water PFAS Case

    ROME, Ga. — A federal judge in Georgia granted class certification to a group of Summerville, Ga., water and sewer subscribers and ratepayers as part of a proposed “Damages Class” for past rate increases caused by toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in their groundwater but denied certification for future increases and denied certification of a proposed “Injunction Class” in a lawsuit seeking damages for several chemical manufacturers’ involvement in the contamination.

  • October 01, 2025

    Hawaii Federal Judge Denies Summary Judgment To Navy In CWA Fuel Release Case

    HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii opined in denying a motion for summary judgment filed by the U.S. Navy that a group of individuals and the environmental group they belong to have shown evidence that the Navy violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) through the ongoing discharge of hazardous substances into surrounding waters from an underground fuel storage facility in Honolulu as well as a likelihood of recurrence of prior violations.

  • September 30, 2025

    States Say Transfer Of Emissions Waiver Elimination Suit Could Be Correct Move

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A group of states that follow California’s regulations for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new motor vehicles that filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California challenging a series of recent resolutions that eliminated Clean Air Act (CAA) preemption waivers contend that a transfer of the case to the Eastern District of California “may be appropriate” in light of a similar suit filed over enforcement of restrictive heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards.

  • September 30, 2025

    D.C. Federal Judge Denies Injunction In Environmental Grants Elimination Suit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled in an order denying an emergency motion for an injunction that 23 nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, tribes and local governments that sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the elimination of a federal block grant program designed to help underserved and environmentally challenged communities will not suffer significant “irreparable harm” if funds are returned to the U.S. Department of the Treasury as they pursue an appeal of the dismissal of their claims.

  • September 26, 2025

    Tribe Appeals Federal Judge’s Denial Of Intervention In Utah Fracking Case

    SALT LAKE CITY — The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation filed a notice of appeal to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after a federal judge in Utah ruled that it lacked standing to intervene in a settled case involving Clean Air Act (CAA) violations at a fracking operator’s oil and gas production facilities on the tribe’s reservation.

  • September 25, 2025

    10th Circuit Consolidates Federal Permit Remand Appeals In Colo. Dam Project Case

    DENVER — Briefing and proceedings in appeals filed by the city and county of Denver and the Army Corps of Engineers to a federal judge’s order remanding permits and permanently enjoining enlargement of an existing dam for a massive water expansion projectin Boulder County will be addressed together pursuant to an order that also lifted an abatement, set a briefing schedule and punted a jurisdictional decision to the panel that will address the merits of the case.

  • September 23, 2025

    United States Supports Expanded Federal Officer Removal In Oil Company Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States told the U.S. Supreme Court that 2011 amendments broadened the federal officer removal statute, which now encompasses tasks even related to those directed by the government.

  • September 23, 2025

    EPA Opposes Injunction After Appeal Of Dismissal Of Federal Suit Over Grant Cuts

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says in opposition to an emergency motion for injunction pending an appeal that was filed by 23 nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, tribes and local governments that a federal District of Columbia judge correctly applied two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions when dismissing claims alleging the government violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the U.S. Constitution when it eliminated a federal block grant program designed to help underserved and environmentally challenged communities.

  • September 23, 2025

    Okla. Federal Judge: Expert On Value Of Contaminated Cattle Ranch Can Testify

    MUSKOGEE, Okla. — An Oklahoma federal judge denied a motion to exclude the testimony of an expert who opined on the property value of a ranch that was allegedly contaminated by a pipeline after finding that an expert who opined on the value of a property meets admissibility standards.

  • September 22, 2025

    Illinois To Pay $10.5M For Superfund Site Cleanup In Consent Decree With EPA

    CHICAGO — Pursuant to a consent decree lodged in federal court, the state of Illinois has agreed to perform in-kind services to the tune of $10.5 million that will support the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s remedial action to clean up radioactive contamination at an Ottawa landfill pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.

  • September 19, 2025

    EPA Upholds PFAS CERCLA Designation, Wants Abeyance Lifted In D.C. Circuit Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — After months of review, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided to uphold a final rule that added two widely used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the list of hazardous substances covered by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and wants briefing to commence in a series of consolidated petitions filed in a federal circuit court by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and six trade associations against the designation.

  • September 18, 2025

    United States Moves For Summary Judgment In Vermont Climate Change Act Suit

    BURLINGTON, Vt. — The United States and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved for summary judgment in and opposed two motions for dismissal of a lawsuit it filed challenging Vermont’s recently approved climate change act as part of the federal government’s efforts to address an alleged “energy crisis” plaguing the country, contending that the state “is usurping federal authority and impairing the United States’ sovereign interest in the recognition of its laws and the preservation of our Nation’s federal structure” through implementation of the law.

  • September 18, 2025

    Mass. Federal Judge Rules ‘Secret’ Climate Change Resistance Group Subject To FACA

    BOSTON — A federal judge in Massachusetts on Sept. 17 ruled that a federal group that allegedly formed in “secret” at the beginning of the year to reject the “science-based assessment of the causes of climate change and the harms that it is already inflicting on the American people” is an advisory committee subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) but that its actions did not cause irreparable injury in partially granting a summary judgment motion and denying a motion for preliminary injunction filed by two environmental nonprofits.

  • September 17, 2025

    Paper Companies Petition High Court In Mich. Superfund Site CERCLA Liability Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. —  Several large paper companies filed a petition for writ of certiorari in a long-running case asking the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether contribution claims for cleanup at a Michigan Superfund site could be brought under more than one section of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and whether the statute of limitations kicked in with a federal judge’s issuance of a “bare declaratory judgment” regarding liability.

  • September 11, 2025

    Military Leaders, Ex-AGs Tout Need For Expanded Federal Officer Removal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of amicus curiae briefs filed Sept. 11, former U.S. attorneys general and military leaders urged the U.S. Supreme Court to adopt an expanded reading of 2011 amendments to the federal officer removal statute as a means of ensuring that private companies are willing to work with the federal government without the threat of being sued decades later.  The case involves whether lawsuits against oil companies for conduct related to drilling for oil during World War II belong in state or federal court.

  • September 11, 2025

    EPA Will Make Pollution Determinations In Calif. Valley To Settle Federal Lawsuit

    SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed in a joint motion filed Sept. 10 in a federal court in California to sign a final rule making an attainment determination for the 1997 8-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for the San Joaquin Valley and to sign final rules approving or disapproving Smog Check Contingency Measure State Implementation Plan (SIP) revisions by specified dates to avoid further federal litigation brought by a group of environmental nonprofits alleging that the agency’s failure to make the air quality determinations was causing a “public health crisis” in the area.

  • September 10, 2025

    Federal Magistrate Judge: Deny Groups’ Intervention In N.Y. Climate Change Act Suit

    SYRACUSE, N.Y. —  A federal magistrate judge in New York recommended that several nonprofits devoted to addressing aspects of climate change be denied permissive intervention as defendants in a lawsuit filed by a group of states led by West Virginia and several coal, oil and natural gas industry groups against New York officials over the state’s Climate Change Superfund Act, finding that their motion “falls short” in showing that the nonprofits’ interests are not already represented and that their involvement in the case would not negatively affect “orderly litigation.”

  • September 09, 2025

    Nuisance Suit Against Exxon For Plastics Pollution May Proceed, Judge Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted Exxon Mobil Corp.’s motion to dismiss claims by environmental groups that it violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by manufacturing single-use plastics that it allegedly misrepresented as recyclable while earning billions of dollars from sales but denied the motion as to the plaintiffs’ public nuisance claims.

  • September 09, 2025

    N.Y. Federal Judge Moves Energy Groups’ Climate Change Act Suit To North District

    NEW YORK — A lawsuit filed by several organizations representing the country’s largest energy producers that challenges the constitutionality of New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act is moving from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to the Northern District of New York after a federal judge on Sept. 8 found it is related to a similar case in the Northern District in granting state officials’ motion to transfer.

  • September 09, 2025

    D.C. Panel Vacates Injunction That Enjoined Termination Of Clean Energy Grants

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority vacated and remanded an order granting a motion for preliminary injunction to several nonprofit financial organizations and state “green banks” that enjoined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from effectuating the termination of National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) grants, ruling that the D.C. District Court “abused its discretion” in issuing the injunction and that success on the merits is unlikely because the “claims are essentially contractual” and “jurisdiction lies exclusively in the Court of Federal Claims.”

  • September 05, 2025

    Oil Companies: Direction, Causal Nexus Not Part Of Federal Officer Removal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress expanded the federal officer removal statute in 2011 to include conduct connected to federal directives, and asbestos case law establishes that nothing in the statute imposes a causal nexus or contractual directive, oil companies whose World War II drilling activities allegedly violated Louisiana law tell the U.S. Supreme Court in a Sept. 4 brief.

  • September 05, 2025

    Groups Sue EPA In N.Y. Federal Court Over Failure To Regulate Spills In Final Rule

    NEW YORK — A network of environmental justice organizations and several membership groups and members sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a federal court in New York over the agency’s failure to implement new regulations for hazardous substance spills from non-transportation-related onshore facilities in a 2019 final rule.