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Mealey's Pollution Liability

  • 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.

  • June 18, 2025

    States Sue EPA, Trump Over California Emissions Waiver Elimination

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A group of states that follow California’s regulations for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new motor vehicles are suing the federal government over a series of recently adopted resolutions that eliminated the Clean Air Act (CAA) preemption waivers, arguing that the Congressional Review Act (CRA) was unlawfully used to streamline the approval process.

  • June 16, 2025

    Supreme Court Agrees To Decide Federal Officer Removal Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 16 agreed to decide the scope of the federal officer removal statute after granting oil companies’ petition contending that their drilling and related operations during World War II were sufficiently “related to” government contracts for federal jurisdiction over claims that their actions deviated from prudent industry practices.

  • June 13, 2025

    City, Water Board Seek Punitive Damages And Costs To Remove PFAS From Water

    WHEELING, W.Va. — A city and its water authority have sued multiple companies in West Virginia federal court under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) seeking to recover the costs associated with removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that have tainted the local sources of drinking water.

  • June 12, 2025

    Georgia Federal Judge Approves More Settlements In Drinking Water PFAS Case

    ROME, Ga. —  A large textile mill operator, the town where it operates and one of its product manufacturers will pay more than $1.25 million to a group of water subscribers and ratepayers for their admitted involvement in contaminating groundwater in a northwest region of Georgia with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) through partial class action settlements granted final approval on June 11 by a federal judge.

  • June 11, 2025

    Seattle Gypsum Manufacturer Faces Permit, CWA Violations In Water Pollution Suit

    SEATTLE — An environmental nonprofit on June 10 filed suit in a federal court in Washington  against a Seattle-based gypsum manufacturing facility for alleged violations of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit and the Clean Water Act (CWA) through discharges of stormwater and industrial waste into the nearby waters of Puget Sound.

  • June 11, 2025

    Ferrosilicon Producer Seeks Reconsideration On Discovery Limits In Cleanup Row

    PADUCAH, Ky. — A ferrosilicon producer seeks reconsideration of a Kentucky federal magistrate judge’s ruling limiting the scope of the producer’s issued deposition topics, claiming that the court erred in failing to acknowledge a reinsurer as a proper party in the litigation and misinterpreted its role in a reinsurance contract in a dispute over pollution-related cleanup costs.

  • June 10, 2025

    6th Circuit Says Some Fraud Claims In Defeat Device Case Preempted By CAA

    CINCINNATI — Several fraud claims made by owners of diesel Chevrolet vehicles who said that they were misled by the manufacturer through the installation of devices designed to defeat U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions testing may not have been preempted by the Clean Air Act (CAA), a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled in partially vacating and remanding a Michigan federal court’s dismissal ruling.

  • June 06, 2025

    Groups Sue City, Companies For Untreated Wastewater Pollution Of Drinking Water

    ASHEBORO, N.C. — Environmental groups have sued a city and two businesses in North Carolina federal court contending that they are liable for contaminating groundwater with the cancer-causing chemical 1,4-dioxane by allowing untreated wastewater to make its way downstream into the drinking water supplies for other municipalities.

  • June 05, 2025

    Colorado Dam Construction Delay Unsafe, Unmerited, Judge Says In Injunction Denial

    DENVER — A federal judge in Colorado determined that a stay enjoining construction of a massive Boulder County water expansion project pending an appeal by the city and county of Denver to an order that remanded permits for the project to the federal agencies that issued them “is not merited due to safety concerns,” denying a motion for permanent injunction filed by a group of environmental nonprofits.

  • June 04, 2025

    Exxon Waives Waiting Period, Groups Answer Petition In High Court CAA Penalty Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — ExxonMobil on June 4 waived a 14-day waiting period for distribution and wants the U.S. Supreme Court to consider by the end of the month a petition for a writ of certiorari 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.

  • June 04, 2025

    Conn. Landowner Says 2nd Circuit Erred In Remediation Finding In Wetlands CWA Case

    NEW YORK — A Connecticut landowner found to be liable for the remediation of his property after he violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) by filling in protected wetlands without a permit and failed to adhere to warnings and notices from various federal agencies filed a motion for a petition for rehearing as a matter of law asking the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss the case and issue an injunction preventing federal agencies from enforcing the CWA on private property.

  • June 04, 2025

    U.S. Says High Court Should Hear Washington Port Facility CWA Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States says the U.S. Supreme Court should grant a petition for writ of certiorari filed by the operators of a Tacoma, Wash., marine cargo terminal asking 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 on the grounds that private citizens cannot bring actions in federal court to enforce certain state permit conditions under the Clean Water Act (CWA).

  • June 02, 2025

    Seattle Woman’s Heatwave Death Generates Climate Change Suit Against Fuel Companies

    SEATTLE — The daughter of a Washington woman who died from extreme heat that was allegedly “directly linked to fossil fuel-driven alteration of the climate” is suing manufacturers, distributors and sellers of fossil fuels in a Washington court for wrongful death, public nuisance and failure to warn for their alleged roles in effecting the reportedly fatal climate change circumstances.