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

In these consolidated petitions, petitioners challenged area designations promulgated by the EPA for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) applicable to ground-level ozone, i.e., smog.The court found that at least one petitioner has standing to challenge each of the designations at issue. In this case, Government Petitioners have adequately demonstrated standing based on direct injuries rather than parens patriae status. On the merits, the court granted Jefferson County's petition and held that EPA has, without explanation, treated similarly situated areas—Jefferson and Boles—differently and drawn conflicting conclusions from the same data. Therefore, such inconsistent treatment is the hallmark of arbitrary agency action and requires further explanation from the EPA. The court also granted petitions for review for Monroe County, Ottawa County, Weld County, Door County, and Sheboygan County. The court denied Lake County's petition for review and granted EPA's motion to remand. View "Clean Wisconsin v. Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

Appellants, conservative organizations and a safari guide, filed suit challenging the Service's actions governing the import of sport-hunted animal trophies from Africa. Initially, appellants challenged certain findings the Service made, the Service then withdrew some findings following the outcome of a similar case, and then the Service announced that in the future it would proceed by informal adjudication.The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's rejection of appellants' claims on appeal, holding that appellants' challenges to the 2017 Zimbabwe findings are moot because the March Memo had already eliminated their legal effects. The court rejected appellants' challenges to the March Memo's withdrawal of more than twenty prior enhancements and on-detriment findings, and held that the district court's approach of evaluating the effect of each withdrawal in the March Memo individually was proper under the circumstances. Finally, the court rejected appellants' argument that it was unlawful for the Service to announce it would proceed in the future to implement the Endangered Species Act through informal adjudication. View "Friends of Animals v. Bernhardt" on Justia Law

Solenex challenged the Secretary's cancellation of its oil and gas lease in the Badger-Two Medicine Area. The district court ruled in favor of Solenex, concluding that the amount of time that had elapsed between the lease's issuance and its cancellation violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the Secretary failed to consider Solenex's reliance interests before cancelling the lease.The DC Circuit held that delay by itself is not enough to render the lease cancellation arbitrary and capricious. The court also held that the Secretary did consider, and in fact compensated, Solenex's identified reliance interests. Therefore, the district court's determinations were erroneous and the court vacated the judgment. View "Solenex LLC v. Bernhardt" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted Maryland's petition for review of the EPA's denial of its Clean Air Act section 126(b) petition requesting that the EPA impose additional limitations on certain upwind sources that were purportedly contributing to the state's nonattainment of the national ozone standards. The EPA applied the same four-step framework it developed in the implementation of section 110 and denied the section 126(b) petition at Step Three. The EPA concluded that Maryland failed to identify further cost-effective emission reductions at sources operating with catalytic controls. For the remaining sources named in Maryland's petition, the EPA explained that non-catalytic controls were not cost-effective in this context.The court held that the EPA's determination was inadequate with respect to non-catalytic controls and therefore granted Maryland's petition for review in part, remanding the issue to the EPA. The court denied all other petitions for review from Delaware and a coalition of environmental groups. The court rejected some of the EPA's Step One determinations, but found, with one exception, that it reasonably denied the petitions at Step Three. View "Maryland v. Environmental Protection Agency" on Justia Law

Hall filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), seeking records from the EPA related to the agency's purported adoption of a "nonacquiescence decision." The judgment at issue is that of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Iowa League of Cities v. EPA, 711 F.3d 844 (8th Cir. 2013).The DC Circuit vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment to the EPA, holding that the date on which the EPA reached a final decision to not acquiesce remains a genuine issue of disputed material fact. In this case, the issue of whether the EPA settled on its nonacquiescence position at the time of that press statement on November 19, 2013, or in the days leading up to it, determines whether the documents regarding that nonacquiescence decision are predecisional and, as such, may qualify for withholding under the EPA's deliberative process privilege. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Hall & Assoc. v. EPA" on Justia Law

When the EPA promulgated the emission standard for pulp mill combustion sources in 2001, EPA addressed some but not all the hazardous air pollutants they are known to emit. In 2017, EPA conducted its first section 112(d)(6) of the Clean Air Act review and revision of the 2001 standard, but decided only to review the standard's limits on emissions of the toxics the standard already controlled, leaving unlimited several other hazardous toxics that the sources are known to emit but that were left out of the 2001 Rule. Petitioners challenged the 2017 Rule's failure to correct the standard's acknowledged under-inclusiveness during the section 112(d)(6) review.The DC Circuit held that, because the Act necessitates section 112-compliant emission standards for each source category, and section 112(d)(6) requires EPA at least every eight years to review and revise emission standards "as necessary," EPA's section 112(d)(6) review of a source category's emission standard must address all listed air toxics the source category emits. Because the 2017 Rule failed to do this, the court granted the petition for review, remanding the rule without vacatur and directing the EPA to set limits on the listed air toxics that pulp mill combustion sources are known to emit but that EPA has yet to control. The court dismissed as moot the denial of the petition for reconsideration. View "Louisiana Environmental Action Network v. EPA" on Justia Law

After the EPA issued guidelines for two categories of solid waste incinerator over two years ago, the Administrator has not imposed a federal plan on noncompliant States. Sierra Club filed suit under the Clean Air Act's (CAA) citizen-suit provision seeking to compel the Administrator's action. The district court dismissed the claim based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction.The DC Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the CAA because the duty in question failed to qualify for section 304's conditional waiver of sovereign immunity. In the alternative, the court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), because the APA contains a carve-out that prevents a plaintiff from using its general sovereign immunity waiver to evade limitations contained in other statutes like the CAA. View "Sierra Club v. Wheeler" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit granted the petitions for review of the EPA's 2018 Rule, which suspended the prior listing of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as unsafe substitutes in its entirety. Consequently, even current users of ozone-depleting substances can now shift to HFCs.As a preliminary matter, the court held that it had jurisdiction to consider the petitions for review, because NRDC, like New York, has established its standing to proceed. Furthermore, the 2018 Rule meets both prongs of the Bennett test for finality. On the merits, the court held that the 2018 Rule was a legislative rule and was thus improperly promulgated without the required notice-and-comment procedures. Accordingly, the court vacated the 2018 Rule, remanding to the EPA for further proceedings. View "Natural Resources Defense Council v. Wheeler" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit dismissed Sierra Club's petition for review of the EPA's "Guidance on Significant Impact Levels for Ozone and Fine Particles in the Prevention of Significant Deterioration Permitting Program" (SILs Guidance). The court held that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction under the Clean Air Act, because the SILs Guidance is not final agency action. The court explained that the SILs Guidance does not determine rights or obligations and does not effectuate direct or appreciable legal consequences as understood by the finality inquiry. View "Sierra Club v. EPA" on Justia Law

In these consolidated actions, petitioners challenged the EPA's 2014 final rule, which exempted coal- and oil-burning power plant utility boilers' startup periods from numerical limits on hazardous air pollutants. EPA instead imposed qualitative "work practice" standards during these periods.The DC Circuit held that EPA erred in denying the petition for reconsideration and granted the petition in No. 16-1349 because it was impracticable for petitioners to raise their two objections during the notice-and-comment period and the objections were of central relevance to the final rule. Consequently, the court did not reach the merits of the arguments in No. 15-1015. View "Chesapeake Climate Action Network v. EPA" on Justia Law