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Mealey's Pollution Liability

  • March 14, 2025

    Judge Says Environmental Group Lacks Standing In PFAS Water Contamination Case

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal judge in Tennessee has dismissed a lawsuit brought by an environmental advocacy group against a landfill operator related to water contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), concluding that the allegations for violations of federal laws governing clean water are “wholly past violations” and that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring their claims.

  • March 13, 2025

    EPA Announces Long List Of Actions To Review, Overhaul Environmental Regulations

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Administrator Lee Zeldin on March 12 announced more than 20 federal actions to reconsider, terminate, overhaul and restructure a laundry list of environmental regulations in a stated effort to lower living costs, revitalize the auto industry and return regulatory powers to the states.

  • March 13, 2025

    Motion To Alter Or Amend CERCLA Repayment Ruling Denied But New Trial Granted

    JOPLIN, Mo. —  A federal magistrate judge in Missouri denied a motion filed by the former owner and operator of a shuttered fertilizing plant to alter or amend a ruling that the Comprehensive Environmental, Response, Compensation, and Liability Act statute of limitations foreclosed a development company’s attempt to recoup costs associated with remediation efforts but granted a request to hold a new trial to determine whether the claims are barred by the statute of limitations.

  • March 13, 2025

    EPA Eyes Pending Case In Petition To High Court Over CAA Final Rule Venue Provision

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is asking the high court in a new petition to determine whether the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is the proper venue to decide challenges to its decision to disapprove state implementation plans for new air quality standards under the Clean Air Act (CAA), the agency wants the high court to hold off on weighing in until after a decision is made in another similar pending case.

  • March 11, 2025

    High Court Will Not Hear Arguments Between States Over Energy Restrictions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The majority of the U.S. Supreme Court on March 10 denied a motion filed by 19 states led by Alabama for leave to file a bill of complaint against California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island that sought to bar the defendant states from imposing “a global carbon tax on traditional energy producers” through “state tort actions governed by state law in state court.”

  • March 10, 2025

    Clean Energy Nonprofit Files Complaint Against Bank, EPA For Grant Funding Freeze

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A nonprofit financial organization that leverages funding for clean energy projects says in a complaint filed March 8 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the bank tasked with administering its federal grant awards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the agency itself had “no legal basis” for denying requests to withdraw funds from its account after EPA officials announced the money was frozen pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement of the disbursements.

  • March 07, 2025

    Parties In U.S. Government’s Chloroprene Emissions Injury Case Stipulate Dismissal

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana has issued a minute entry indicating that the U.S. government and a chemical company that had been engaged in an injury lawsuit involving carcinogenic chloroprene emissions from neoprene manufacturing operations intend to file a stipulation of dismissal that has been agreed to by all parties.

  • March 06, 2025

    More Partial Class Settlements Reached Over Toxic PFAS In Georgia Drinking Water

    ROME, Ga. — Three more defendants in a Georgia federal court case with admitted involvement in contaminating groundwater with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in northwest Georgia have agreed to contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to a temporary drinking water fund through two proposed partial class action settlement agreements reached with a group of water subscribers and ratepayers.

  • March 06, 2025

    U.S. Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments In Texas Nuclear Waste Storage Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 5 in two consolidated cases in which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and government contractor Interim Storage Partners LLC (ISP) are challenging the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and elements of the Hobbs Act that the NRC used when it vacated approval of a license allowing interim storage of spent nuclear fuel at a planned facility in west Texas.

  • March 05, 2025

    Fuel Advocacy Groups Urge Supreme Court To Review Federal Officer Removal Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ignored the “extraordinary coordination” required to fuel a war effort and imposed too narrow a focus in determining that the creation of an administration office severed the connection between the government and conduct required for federal officer removal, amici curiae told the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • March 04, 2025

    Divided U.S. Supreme Court Rules CWA Exceeds EPA Authority In Permitting Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on March 4 ruled that the Clean Water Act (CWA) exceeds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to impose requirements that make a permittee responsible for the water quality in the body of water in which the permittee discharges pollutants, reversing and remanding a case involving a dispute over San Francisco’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.

  • March 04, 2025

    COMMENTARY: Sustainability Recalibration: What Insurers And Policyholders Should Know About ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance Considerations) Under Trump 2.0, Part 1

    By Scott M. Seaman

  • March 04, 2025

    D.C. Circuit Grants EPA’s Motion For Abeyance In PFAS CERCLA Designation Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a motion filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to hold in abeyance for 60 days a case in which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and six trade associations petitioned for review of a final rule promulgated by the agency 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.

  • March 03, 2025

    New York Nonprofit Groups Sue USDA Over Climate Change Website Content ‘Purge’

    FOLEY SQUARE, N.Y. — Several New York nonprofit organizations sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the “unlawful purge” of climate-related content from its websites, citing violations of the Paperwork Reduction, Administrative Procedure and Freedom of Information acts.

  • March 03, 2025

    Ore. Magistrate Judge: Bulk Of Residents’ Groundwater Contamination Claims Valid

    PENDLETON, Ore. — A federal magistrate judge in Oregon, in addressing motions to dismiss, issued findings and recommendation that a group of residents who sued the Port of Morrow and several agricultural companies pursuant to state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for alleged contamination of groundwater in the Lower Umatilla Basin can pursue most, but not all, of their claims for relief.

  • February 28, 2025

    Group: Court Should Use ‘Any Means Necessary’ To Stop PFAS Permit Violations

    CHARLESTON, W.Va. — An environmental advocacy group has filed a brief in West Virginia federal court in support of a motion for a preliminary injunction, arguing that it should prohibit “by any means necessary” the Chemours Co. FC LLC from violating its discharge limits in its Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for the Washington Works plastics plant for several types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

  • February 26, 2025

    States, Energy Groups Seek Relief From ‘Ugly’ N.Y. Climate Change Superfund Act

    SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A group of states led by West Virginia and several coal, oil and natural gas industry groups are seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from a New York federal court against New York officials over the state’s newly minted Climate Change Superfund Act, claiming that “traditional energy producers” have been saddled with “tens of billions of dollars of liability” through “retroactive fines” stemming from prior, lawful contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.

  • February 26, 2025

    New Administration Delays Cases Challenging CWA Permit Vetoes For Alaska Mine

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A federal judge in Alaska will hold in abeyance for 90 days three consolidated cases challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s veto of Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permits needed to develop a large southwestern Alaska copper and mine deposit as the new leadership of the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers learn about the cases.

  • February 25, 2025

    Stays Granted In 3 Federal WOTUS Cases As Agencies Brief New Leadership

    Three similar cases filed by groups of states led by West Virginia, Kentucky and Texas alleging that a recent Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the U.S. Constitution have been stayed in their respective federal jurisdictions as the new leadership of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers are briefed on the case details.

  • February 24, 2025

    Supreme Court Seeks Response In Oil Companies’ Federal-Officer Removal Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 21 sought a response after various Louisiana entities waived their right to respond to a petition for certiorari challenging a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that the oil drilling petitioners say contradicts precedent created in asbestos cases and imposes an erroneous “crabbed view” of federal officer removal that requires a causal nexus or contractual root to the conduct in question.

  • February 21, 2025

    Intervenors Support EPA In PFAS Designation Case Amid Agency’s Abeyance Motion

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awaits a District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s decision on a motion to postpone for 60 days, a group of environmental agency intervenors filed a brief in support of denying petitions the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and six trade associations filed asking the panel to vacate a final rule promulgated by the agency 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.

  • February 20, 2025

    Rehearing For Train Car CAA, EPRCA Violations, Penalty Denied By 9th Circuit

    SPOKANE, Wash.   — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an anhydrous ammonia supplier’s request for rehearing and rehearing en banc regarding an $850,000 penalty and injunction imposed upon it for violating the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) by storing train cars carrying a regulated hazardous substance at its Othello, Wash., facility.

  • February 19, 2025

    Oil Companies Seek Review Of Ruling Remanding WWII Improper Drilling Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals contradicted precedent created in asbestos cases and erred in imposing a “crabbed view” of federal officer removal that requires a causal nexus or contractual root to the conduct in question, oil companies accused of improper drilling during World War II tell the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for certiorari.

  • February 18, 2025

    9th Circuit Majority Reverses Dismissal In NEPA, RCRA Case Against Air Force

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority reversed and remanded a district court judge’s dismissal of a Guam-based nonprofit corporation’s lawsuit challenging the U.S. Air Force’s decision to engage in hazardous waste disposal at Tarague Beach, finding that the final agency action “was ripe for judicial review” and that the nonprofit had standing to challenge a procedural injury under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and can state a claim by alleging noncompliance with the statute.

  • February 14, 2025

    Government Asks Federal Judge To Deny Tribe Intervention In Utah Fracking Case

    SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. and Utah governments asked a federal judge in Utah to deny a motion filed by the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Reservation 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, stating that the tribe makes the same argument it did during negotiations for a consent decree reached between the government and the operator and “does not meet the standard for intervention as of right or permissive intervention.”