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

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

This case stemmed from Congress's amendment of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7545(o), to establish a renewable fuel standard (RFS) program. API objected to the EPA's 2012 projection for cellulosic biofuel and to its refusal to reduce the applicable advanced biofuels volume for 2012. The court rejected API's argument that the EPA failed to justify its determination not to reduce the applicable advanced biofuels volume for 2012. However, because the EPA's methodology for making its cellulosic biofuel projection did not take neutral aim at accuracy, the court held that it was an unreasonable exercise of agency discretion. Accordingly, the court vacated the 2012 RFS rule and remanded for further proceedings. View "American Petroleum Institute v. EPA" on Justia Law

The Sierra Club sought review of the EPA's regulations regarding particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers under Section 166 of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7476. After the Sierra Club filed its petition, the EPA acknowledged that portions of the rule establishing Significant Impact Levels (SILs) did not reflect its intent in promulgating the SILs, and requested that the court vacate and remand some parts of its regulations. Notwithstanding the EPA's concession, the Sierra Club maintained that the EPA lacked authority to establish SILs. The court vacated and remanded to the EPA for further consideration the portions of the EPA's rule addressing SILs, except for the parts of its ruling in 40 C.F.R. 51.165(b)(2). The court granted Sierra Club's petition as to the parts of the EPA's rule establishing the Significant Monitoring Concentration (SMC), and vacated them because these parts of the rule exceeded the EPA's statutory authority. View "Sierra Club v. EPA" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from the EPA's administration of a cap-and-trade program regulating the production and consumption of hydrochlorofluorcarbons (HCFCs) under the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7671d(c), 7671e(b). The program entailed overall caps on production and consumption of various HCFCs for each year, as well as EPA-administered baseline allowances of HCFCs for each participating company. Companies were then permitted to transfer their allowances subject to certain statutory and regulatory restrictions. Honeywell complained that certain 2008 transfers made by their competitors Arkema and Solvay were deemed to permanently increase those competitors' future baseline allowances of HCFCs. The court concluded that Honeywell's claim was foreclosed by the court's decision in Arkema, Inc. V. EPA, which held that the EPA, having approved the 2008 interpollutant transfers, had to honor them in the future at least so long as the EPA continued to set baselines by considering the historical usage of HCFCs by participating companies. The Arkema Court necessarily concluded that permanent interpollutant transfers were permissible under the statute. Absent en banc review, the court must adhere to circuit precedent. Because Honeywell's other challenges to the 2008 transfers were meritless, the court denied the petition for review. View "Honeywell International, Inc. v. EPA" on Justia Law