Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Environmental groups petitioned for review of the EPA's "Deferral Rule," which deferred regulation of biogenic carbon dioxide for three years. The EPA justified this Deferral Rule on the basis of the de minimis, one-step-at-a-time, and administrative necessity doctrine. Concluding that the dispute was ripe for review, the court rejected the EPA's use of the de minimus doctrine where EPA expressly disavowed this doctrine, explaining that the Deferral Rule had a three-year sunset provision whereas the de minimis doctrine was used to establish permanent exemptions; the EPA's invocation of the one-step-at-a-time doctrine was arbitrary and capricious where the EPA failed to explain in the Deferral Rule what "full compliance" with the "statutory mandate" means; the court rejected the administrative necessity doctrine where the EPA rejected a proposed middle-ground option; and the court rejected the absurd results doctrine that the EPA raised for the first time in its brief. Accordingly, the court granted the petition for review. View "Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA" on Justia Law

Appellants, hunters and hunting organizations, challenged the Service's bar against the importation of polar bear trophies under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), 16 U.S.C. 1361 et seq., and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq. In regard to statutory challenges, the court concluded that Congress intended to extend the protections of sections 101(a)(3)(B) and 102(b)(3) of the MMPA to all depleted species, regardless of their depleted status; although section 104(c)(5) did authorize trophy importation, that provision remained subject to the MMPA's more stringent protections for depleted species; section 102(b)(3) referred not only to mammals taken from species the Secretary had designated as depleted but instead mammals taken from species the Secretary has so designated; and section 101(a)(3)(B) could not permit what section 102(b)(3) expressly prohibited. In regards to procedural challenges, the court concluded that section 115(a) was inapplicable because an ESA listing resulted in a depleted designation under the MMPA but entailed no "determination" to that effect. Finally, the Listing Rule provided adequate notice. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "In re: Polar Bear Endangered Species Act Listing" on Justia Law

The Institute challenged the final rule promulgated by the FRA to implement section 104 of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, Pub. L. No. 110-432 section 104(a)(1), 122 Stat. 4848, 4857. Section 104 required a qualifying rail carrier to submit an implementation plan to install a "positive train control" (PTC) system no later than December 31, 2015 on certain tracks used for passenger service or for transporting "poison- or toxic- by-inhalation" hazardous material (PIH or TIH). The court concluded that the Institute's challenge was not ripe because it had not established that its members now faced a present or imminent injury from the 2012 Final Rule's omission of a two-part risk assessment test. Accordingly, the court dismissed the Institute's petition for lack of jurisdiction. View "Chlorine Institute, Inc. v. FRA, et al." on Justia Law

Millard petitioned for review of the Commission's affirmance of citations issued to Millard for committing violations of emergency response, training, record-keeping, and other requirements after more than 30,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia escaped from one of Millard's refrigerated storage facilities. The court concluded that Millard's challenges to the two process safety management violations, Millard's contention that OSHA was estopped from asserting that the company violated agency regulations, and Millard's ten remaining challenges either lacked merit or merited neither reversal nor further discussion. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Millard Refrigerated Services v. Secretary of Labor" on Justia Law

Petitioners challenged the EPA's revised emissions standards for secondary lead smelting facilities. In 2012, acting pursuant to sections 112(d)(6) and 112(f)(2) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7412(d)(6), (f)(2), EPA revised the 1995 emissions standards for secondary lead smelting facilities, reducing allowable emissions by 90% and requiring smelters to totally enclose certain "fugitive" emission sources. Industry petitioners first argued that the Secondary Lead Rule impermissibly regulated elemental lead as hazardous air pollutants (HAP). The court concluded, inter alia, that industry petitioners' first contention was time-barred and the second contention also failed because the Rule set HAP emissions standards at levels designed to attain the primary lead national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), not the converse. In regards to environmental petitioners' challenges, the court concluded that environmental petitioners have shown that their members would have standing under Article III to sue in their own right. However, environmental petitioners' challenge failed on the merits. Their primary argument that, when EPA revised emissions standards under section 112(d)(6), it must recalculate the maximum achievable control technology in accordance with sections 112(d)(2) and (d)(3), was barred by NRDC v. EPA, 529 F.3d 1077 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Accordingly, the court denied in part and dismissed in part the petitions for review. View "Assoc. of Battery Recyclers v. EPA, et al" on Justia Law

Intervenor, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, appealed the grant of summary judgment to the Sierra Club based on violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., by the USDA's Rural Utilities Services. The district court ruled that the Service unlawfully failed to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) before granting approvals and financial assistance to Sunflower's expansion of its coal-fired power plant, and remanded the matter to the Service, enjoining it from granting further approvals until it completed an EIS. The court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1291 because Sunflower appealed a non-final remand order that was not immediately appealable by a private party and under section 1292(a)(1) because the injunction served no purpose beyond the remand. View "Sierra Club v. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, et al" on Justia Law

This case arose from actions taken by the Commission approving an application by Southern for combined licenses to construct and operate new Units 3 and 4 of the Vogtle Nuclear Plant and an application by Westinghouse for an amendment to its already-approved reactor design on which the Vogtle application relied. After the close of the combined-license hearing record, petitioners sought to reopen the hearing to litigate contentions relating to the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex in Japan. The court held that the Commission acted reasonably in denying petitioners' contentions where the Task Force Report, studying the implications of the Fukushima accident for the United States, alone was not a "new and significant" circumstance requiring a supplemental environmental impact statement and petitioners' contentions lacked specific links between the Fukushima Accident and the Vogtle Site. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "Blue Ridge Env. Defense League, et al v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, et al" on Justia Law

Mingo Logan applied to the Corps for a permit under section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1344, to discharge dredged or fill material from a mountain-top coal mine in West Virginia into three streams and their tributaries. The Corps issued the permit to Mingo Logan, approving the requested disposal sites for the discharged materials. Four years later, the EPA invoked its subsection 404(c) authority to "withdraw" the specifications of two of the streams as disposal sites, thereby prohibiting Mingo Logan from discharging them. Mingo Logan then filed this action challenging the EPA's withdrawal of the specified sites. The court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Mingo Logan and concluded that the EPA had post-permit withdrawal authority. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Mingo Logan Coal Co. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Defenders sued the EPA based on the EPA's alleged failure to promptly promulgate revisions to certain effluent limitations and effluent limitations guidelines under the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq. UWAG, an association of energy companies and three national trade associations of energy companies, appealed the denial of intervention and also asserted that the court should vacate the district court's order entering a consent decree between Defenders and the EPA because the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The court affirmed the denial of intervention because UWAG lacked Article III standing and, as there was no appellant with standing, dismissed the remainder of the appeal. View "Defenders of Wildlife, et al v. Jackson" on Justia Law

After a three-year rulemaking process, the FWS found that, due to the effects of global climate change, the polar bear was likely to become an endangered species and faced the threat of extinction within the foreseeable future (Listing Rule). The agency thus concluded that the polar bear should be listed as a threatened species. A number of industry groups, environmental organizations, and states challenged the Listing Rule as either overly restrictive or insufficiently protective of the polar bear. After a hearing on the parties' submissions, the district court granted summary judgment to the FWS and rejected all challenges to the Listing Rule. Given the evident thoroughness and care of the agency's explanation for its decision, the court concluded that the challenges to the Listing Rule "amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "In re: Polar Bear Endangered Species Act Listing and Section 4(d) Rule Litigation" on Justia Law