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Mealey's Pollution Liability

  • July 24, 2025

    9th Circuit Denies Rehearing, Nixing Dismissal Of NEPA, RCRA Case Against Air Force

    SAN FRANCISCO —  Despite the original dissenting judge voting to take up the case, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition filed by the U.S. Air Force for rehearing or rehearing en banc of a majority’s decision to reverse and remand a trial court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a Guam-based nonprofit corporation challenging the agency’s decision to engage in hazardous waste disposal at Tarague Beach.

  • July 21, 2025

    Panel Tosses CERCLA, State Claims, Says Sanctions Valid In N.Y. Site Cleanup Case

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that a six-year statute of limitations pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act commenced on an alloy and metal processing company’s claims for reimbursement of millions of dollars for response costs and damages associated with the release of hazardous substances at the site of a New York metal recycling operation and that spoliation sanctions for the company’s destruction of more than 23,000 pounds of documents was, in fact, warranted.

  • July 17, 2025

    EPA Appeals Ruling That Halted Termination Of Environmental Grant Awards

    BALTIMORE — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appealed to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a federal judge in Maryland’s order halting the federal agency’s termination of grants awarded to three nonprofit financial institutions for environmental projects and initiatives “in disadvantaged communities.”

  • July 17, 2025

    Judge Says Federal Agencies Do Not Have To Restore Shuttered Environmental Sites

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that several agencies that were sued by a group of nonprofits for removing webpages that provided information about environmental justice and climate change do not have to put the sites back up right now in denying the groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction because they showed only economic harm and waited too long to seek relief.

  • July 16, 2025

    5th Circuit: Causation Experts In Deepwater Horizon Case Properly Excluded

    NEW ORLEANS — A Mississippi federal court did not err in awarding summary judgment to BP Exploration & Production and its affiliate after finding that a man’s experts retained to opine on how his injuries were connected to exposure to chemicals during remediation activities following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill were inadmissible, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.

  • July 16, 2025

    Groups Sue EPA Over Water Contamination From CERCLA Cleanup At Tenn. Facility

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Several environmental nonprofit organizations representing recreational users of bodies of water in the area of a former U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons facility in east Tennessee are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for implementing cleanup activities that allegedly violate requirements of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 and other federal directives.

  • July 10, 2025

    States Want To Intervene In Youths’ Suit Over Fossil Fuel Executive Orders

    BUTTE, Mont. — A group of 19 sovereign states and one territory led by Montana want in on a federal lawsuit filed by 22 minors and young adults against President Donald J. Trump and several government agencies seeking to rescind and declare unconstitutional a series of executive orders that include directives to increase fossil fuel production, alleging “unique interests” in the case due to threats to their economies, use of land and budgets if the orders are eliminated.

  • July 10, 2025

    Motion Denied, But Company To Fund Contaminated Cows’ Care In Pipeline Leak Dispute

    POCATELLO, Idaho — A federal judge in Idaho ruled that a Caribou Mountain Range cattle-farming couple must continue caring for nearly 750 unsellable cows and calves that were likely exposed to toxic materials from a 2023 pipeline leak but that the company that operates the line must bear the cost of preserving the animals during discovery proceedings of a lawsuit the couple filed over environmental contamination of their ranch.

  • July 02, 2025

    Exxon’s Petition For Review Of $14.25M CAA Penalty Denied By High Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition filed by ExxonMobil asking for review of an order issued by a “fractured” en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that requires the company to pay a $14.25 million penalty for air pollution incidents at a Texas facility.

  • July 02, 2025

    EPA Petition Regarding Venue Dispute Over CAA Air Quality Standards Denied

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking the court to determine whether the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is the proper venue to decide challenges to the EPA’s decision to disapprove state implementation plans for new air quality standards under the Clean Air Act (CAA).

  • July 02, 2025

    Washington Port Facility CWA Permit Dispute Will Not Be Heard By U.S. Supreme Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed by the operators of a Tacoma, Wash., marine cargo terminal that asked whether the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was correct in ruling that two state-issued National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits applied to the entirety of the terminal where stormwater discharges entered into Puget Sound and that private citizens could not bring actions in federal court to enforce certain state permit conditions under the Clean Water Act (CWA).

  • July 01, 2025

    Supreme Court Grants Petition Challenging Venue In CAA Fuel Standards Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by two trade associations that advocate for the expansion of the use of ethanol and other biofuels that challenged whether the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is the proper venue to review exemptions from the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) program that mandates the amount of fuel to be blended annually into the national supply of gasoline and diesel fuel, with the high court also vacating and remanding the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in light of a decision in EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC, et al.

  • July 01, 2025

    Respondents: CWA Pipeline Permitting Process Case ‘Unworthy’ Of High Court Review

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A drilling contractor and the owner and operator of a 700-mile natural gas pipeline that traverses multiple states argue in a June 30 response that a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Ohio asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the time frame to waive responses to proposed projects affecting state waters under the Clean Water Act (CWA) permitting application process and determine whether states lose their abilities to protect their waters if they fail to participate in the process is “profoundly unworthy of this Court’s review” and there is “no split authority to address” either question.

  • June 30, 2025

    EPA Sued By More Entities Over Elimination Of Federal Grant Program

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of 23 nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, tribes and local governments, on behalf of themselves and a proposed class, sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging the agency acted “unlawfully” when it eliminated a federal block grant program designed to help underserved and environmentally challenged communities shortly after the new administration took office.

  • June 30, 2025

    Recent Case Cues High Court’s Remand Of License Veto For N.M. Nuclear Fuel Storage

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 granted petitions for writ of certiorari to a global energy technology company and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and vacated and remanded for further consideration their challenges to an appellate decision that an exception to the Hobbs Act and the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) stripped the federal agency’s authority to issue a license to store spent nuclear fuel at a proposed facility in New Mexico in light of a decision in a similar case.

  • June 27, 2025

    Panel Vacates ‘Unreasonable’ Part Of Vehicle Fuel Economy Calculation In EPA Rule

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel granted a petition for review to a group of organizations that provide products and support for the gasoline industry and vacated part of an equation developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to calculate vehicle fuel economy in a final rule designed to reduce harmful air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions, calling the challenged portion “unreasonable and unreasonably explained.”

  • June 24, 2025

    Michigan Asks Federal Judge To Dismiss Suit Over Climate Change Litigation Threat

    GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — In a motion to dismiss, Michigan says the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a lawsuit filed by the United States and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that alleges the state violated the U.S. Constitution by threatening litigation against fossil fuel companies over their alleged liability in contributing to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions.

  • June 23, 2025

    Insured’s Claims In Contamination Suit Must Be Arbitrated, Judge Says

    PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon federal judge on June 20 granted a motion to compel arbitration and stay an insured’s suit filed against its excess liability insurers and seeking costs for environmental contamination cleanup after determining that the policies at issue clearly require arbitration of the insured’s claims.

  • June 23, 2025

    Judge Sets Aside EPA’s Termination Of Environmental Grants For 3 Nonprofits

    BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland set aside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s termination of three nonprofit financial institutions’ grant awards supporting environmental initiatives “in disadvantaged communities” for not aligning “with the new administration’s priorities” and ruled that the terminations exceeded the agency’s statutory authority and are arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

  • June 20, 2025

    Petitioners Have Standing To Challenge EPA CAA Fuel Waivers, U.S. High Court Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled June 20 that a group of liquid fuel sellers and producers established standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to challenge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to waive new Clean Air Act (CAA) standards for automobile emissions as they apply to California and remanded the case for a decision on the merits.

  • June 20, 2025

    Groups Allege Trump’s Coal-Fired Power Plant Pollution Exemption Violates CAA

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of environmental nonprofit organizations sued President Donald Trump and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a District of Columbia federal court alleging violation of an untapped provision within the Clean Air Act (CAA) through a new proclamation that exempts nearly one-third of the country’s coal-fired power plants from modernized pollution standards that target “highly toxic substances.”

  • June 19, 2025

    NAACP Files Intent To Sue Alleging CAA Violations At Memphis xAI Data Center

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issued a notice of intent to sue to xAI CEO Elon Musk and other corporate officials alleging that the construction and operation of xAI’s Colossus data center in Memphis, Tenn., violates the Clean Air Act (CAA) and other hazardous air pollutant requirements.

  • June 18, 2025

    High Court Finds Parties Not ‘Aggrieved,’ Reverses Nuclear Waste Storage Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 18 that Texas and the owner of hundreds of acres of land near the proposed site of a planned interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in west Texas are not “parties aggrieved” under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and elements of the Hobbs Act in determining that they were not eligible to obtain judicial review in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of a license issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for construction of the facility.

  • June 18, 2025

    U.S. Supreme Court Vacates 5th Circuit Ruling In CAA Fuel Standards Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 18 vacated a ruling by the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declining to transfer to the District of Columbia Circuit a case involving oil refineries’ challenges to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of requests for exemption from the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) program, finding that the CAA’s ‘“nationwide scope or effect’ exception applies, and the case belongs in the D.C. Circuit.”

  • June 18, 2025

    U.S. High Court Says States’ CAA Plans Can Be Reviewed In Regional Circuit Courts

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 18 reversed and remanded a case over the proper venue to hear challenges to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s disapproval of state implementation plans (SIPs) for new air quality standards under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The court held that the SIPs filed by the states of Oklahoma and Utah are locally or regionally applicable actions reviewable in a regional circuit court.