Mealey's Pollution Liability : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Pollution Liability

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
Government Seeks To Hold In Abeyance Any CERCLA Claims Asserted In AFFF Litigation

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The U.S. government on Sept. 8 moved in South Carolina federal court to hold in abeyance claims against the government that seek cost recovery and contribution under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) in multidistrict litigation pertaining to water contamination from the use of the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF). The motion was filed in the docket of a case brought by the Lakewood Water District, but the document indicates that the government intends the abeyance to apply to all MDL cases in which the government is a defendant.
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.
September 04, 2025
EPA Sued Again In Calif. Federal Court Over Air Pollution In San Joaquin Valley

SAN FRANCISCO — Several environmental nonprofits filed suit in federal court in California against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency alleging violation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) for “failing to make a determination of attainment” by a June 2025 deadline for the 2006 24-hour National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5) in the San Joaquin Valley.
September 04, 2025
Calif. Federal Judge: Insurance Companies Liable For Cleanup At CERCLA Site

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal judge ruled that intervening insurers in a dispute over responsibility for groundwater contamination under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act at a former wood preservation plant are liable on behalf of a former operator for past and future cleanup costs in granting a state agency’s motion for partial summary judgment.
September 03, 2025
D.C. Federal Judge Dismisses Suit Over Elimination Of Environmental Grants

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Claims filed by 23 nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, tribes and local governments alleging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 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 have been dismissed by a District of Columbia federal judge over lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a cause of action.
August 29, 2025
Oregon Federal Judge Says Group Can Pursue Wildlands CWA Suit Against Air Force

PENDLETON, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon ruled that a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Owyhee Canyonlands showed a concrete and particularized injury-in-fact and causation to establish constitutional standing and stated a sufficient claim for relief under the Clean Water Act (CWA) but failed to establish an informational injury allowing it to sue on its own behalf in a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Air Force for allegedly polluting bodies of water in the area during training exercises at a base that encompasses hundreds of thousands of acres.
August 27, 2025
Companies To Pay U.S. $12.7M Under CERCLA For N.Y. Superfund Site Contamination

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Fifteen companies accused of contaminating a New York Superfund site with hazardous substances are set to pay $12.7 million to the United States under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for incurred remediation costs through a proposed consent decree lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
August 25, 2025
United States, EPA Intervene In Federal Suit Challenging Calif. Truck Emissions Law

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In an intervenor complaint filed Aug. 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, the United States and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency echo the sentiments of a group of heavy-duty vehicle and engine developers in accusing the California Air Resources Board (CARB) of “defying the supremacy of federal authority” through its continued enforcement of restrictive statewide heavy-duty vehicle emissions standards following a congressional preemption pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA).
August 25, 2025
Congoleum Creditor’s Claim For Pollution Liability Barred, Split 3rd Circuit Says

PHILADELPHIA — In a divided opinion on rehearing, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Aug. 22 held that the bankruptcy court overseeing the decades-old Chapter 11 case of asbestos debtor Congoleum Corp. correctly reopened the case and found that a former affiliate of the debtor is not liable to pay for cleanup at a polluted site in New Jersey.
August 21, 2025
N.Y. Federal Judge Denies Accused Park Polluters JMOL, Orders $4M For Cleanup

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York ruled that a “jury had more than sufficient evidence” to find that a building company and its owners were negligently liable for public nuisance related to the dumping of tens of thousands of tons of hazardous construction waste and other materials at Roberto Clemente Park. The judge ordered the defendants to pay more than $4 million in remediation and reimbursement costs to Islip, N.Y., and denied a motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) following the jury trial and verdict.
August 19, 2025
Producer’s Reconsideration Bid On Discovery Limits Denied In Cleanup Cost Row

PADUCAH, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge denied a ferrosilicon producer’s motion to reconsider a prior ruling that limited the scope of the producer’s issued deposition topics, holding that the producer’s objections were largely repetitions of prior arguments already considered and addressed by the court and that claims-handling discovery is inappropriate at the current stage of litigation, which is centered on a reinsurance contract in a dispute over pollution-related cleanup costs.
August 19, 2025
UNC, GE To Pay Millions For Cleanup At Uranium Mine Superfund Sites In New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The United Nuclear Corp. (UNC) and parent company GE agreed to pay more than $53 million for remedial cleanup of hazardous waste and reimburse the Navajo Nation for more than $54,300 in past response costs pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 at two former uranium mining sites in New Mexico in a proposed consent decree filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.
August 11, 2025
COMMENTARY: The Forever Chemical: Regulation, Litigation And Insurance

By Robert D. Chesler, Arthur J. Clarke, Walker Prentke, Brian Della Torre and Matthew J. Sinkman
August 14, 2025
States Can Intervene, Keep Immunity In Youths’ Fossil Fuel Executive Orders Suit

BUTTE, Mont. — A Montana federal judge ruled Aug. 13 that a group of 19 states and one territory can intervene as defendants and keep their sovereign immunity in a lawsuit filed by 22 minors and young adults against President Donald J. Trump and a litany of government agencies seeking to rescind and declare unconstitutional a series of executive orders that include directives to increase fossil fuel production.