In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 244 S.Ct. 2244 (2024), the general breadth and scope of agency decision-making has been called into question. In its recent decision, Huntsman Petrochemical LLC v. EPA, No. 23-1045, 2024 WL 3763355 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 13, 2024), the D.C. Circuit has made it clear that where statutory interpretation is not implicated, the Court will continue to afford EPA’s conclusions involving technical expertise a significant degree of deference. While neither the parties nor the Court attempted to address or reference Loper Bright, the Court articulated a clear standard applicable to agency actions involving statistical and modeling analyses: the Court will examine each step of an agency’s analysis to satisfy themselves that the agency has not “departed from a rational course.” Only where a statistical model “bears no rational relationship to the characteristics of data to which it was applied” will agency action be deemed arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, regulated entities should be aware that the concept of deference lives on when challenging agency decision-making, even in the wake of the fall of Chevron Deference. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, Chevron Deference, Clean Air Act, D.C. Circuit, Emissions, EPA, HAPs, Hazardous Air Pollutants, Rulemaking

This entry was authored by MGKF Summer Associate Karina Zakarian

On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court overruled Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council to the extent that the earlier decision had instructed federal courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. See Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024). The decision stems from a challenge to the Magnuson-Stevens Act by several fishery businesses, but the sole issue before the Court was whether Chevron should be overturned. In a divisive 6-3 decision, the Court’s conservative majority held in the affirmative, entombing Chevron deference based upon the Court’s interpretation of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). As a result, federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) are now deprived of a doctrine they had long relied upon to defend their regulatory agendas. Read More »

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In State of Utah v. Walsh, 2:23-CV-016-Z, 2023 WL 6205926 (N.D. Tex. Sep. 21, 2023), twenty-six states and a number of private parties (“plaintiffs”) sought to overturn the United States Department of Labor’s (“DOL’s”) latest environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) investment rule (“Rule”) issued pursuant to the DOL’s administrative authority under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”).  In upholding the Rule, the district court rejected in a footnote plaintiffs’ attempt to invoke the major questions doctrine, offering guidance as to the types of cases in which courts are more likely to apply the doctrine following the United States Supreme Court’s decision last year in West Virginia v. EPA (2022). Read More »

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In an issue of first impression, in Matter of Proposed Construction of Compressor Station (CS327), No. A-3616-20, 2023 WL 5614411 (N. J. Super. Ct. Aug. 31, 2023), the New Jersey Superior Court rejected the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”)’s interpretation of the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act (the “Highlands Act”) and found that a permittee’s project upgrade must be “routine” to be exempted from the strict permitting requirements of the Highlands Act. Read More »

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This Blog Post was authored by Brielle Brown, a summer associate.  Originally published on July 7, 2021, it has been updated to reflect that after a rehearing, the decision was affirmed on July 20, 2021.

A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit held on June 21, 2021, that air emission exceedances governed by a state air permit and duly reported to state or local authorities pursuant to the permit need not be reported again to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) pursuant to the Section 103 reporting requirements of the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”). Clean Air Council v. U.S. Steel Corp., 2 F.4^th 112 (3d Cir. 2021); 42 U.S.C. § 9603. The decision was reheard and affirmed on July 20, 2021. Clean Air Council v. U.S. Steel Corp., No. 20-2215, -- F.4^th --, 2021 WL 3045927 (3d Cir., July 20, 2021). The court’s reasoning came down to an interpretation of CERCLA that the phrase “subject to” was intended to mean “governed or affected by” rather than “obedient to.” Id. at *3–4. Thus, air emissions that violate relevant Clean Air Act permits are nevertheless “subject to” that permit and therefore exempt from CERCLA’s reporting requirement. Id. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, CERCLA, Chevron Deference, Clean Air Act, Emissions, Pennsylvania, Permits, Superfund, Third Circuit

Late last month the Supreme Court of the United States kept alive private landowners’ challenge to a final rule that designated their land as “critical habitat” for the endangered Dusky Gopher Frog. Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., No. 17-71, 2018 WL 6174253 at *6 (2018) (slip opn.). The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the 1544-acre parcel in Louisiana—known as “Unit 1”—after it found the site “essential for the conservation of the species.” Id. The District Court and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deferred to the Service’s conclusion and upheld the designation. Id. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded. Id. at *7–8, 10. Focusing on the text of the Endangered Species Act, the Court held that: (1) a proposed site must be “habitat” for an endangered species before the Service can designate it as “habitat that is critical,” and (2) federal courts should review for an abuse of discretion the Service’s decision not to exclude a site from designation. Id. Read More »

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