Clean Air Act, Law and Regulations - Environmental Professionals Connection

The Top-Ten Lower Court Decisions on Environmental Law

Legal Planet

FEBRUARY 28, 2025

The Supreme Court tends to get all the attention, but for every Supreme Court opinion on environmental law there are probably fifty opinions in the lower federal courts. Collectively, the lower courts have done fat least as much to shape the law than the Supreme Courts occasional interventions. Any top ten list is a bit arbitrary.

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The Ten Most Important U.S. Environmental Laws

Legal Planet

JUNE 27, 2024

In choosing the top environmental laws, I wanted to focus on those with the largest impacts on the environment, not just those that are most important to environmental lawyers or best known. I included all laws passed in the U.S., not just federal regulatory laws, and some of my selections may not be what you expected.

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U.S. Climate Law: A Broad & Rapidly Growing Field

Legal Planet

APRIL 3, 2023

In preparing to teach a course on climate law, I was really struck by how broad and rich the field has become. Back in the day, it was nearly all international law, but nowadays there’s a huge amount of U.S. domestic law. and international law. and international law. Nuclear power regulation D. Here goes: I.

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State-Level Actions To Decarbonize Aviation

Legal Planet

MARCH 13, 2025

Opponents will undoubtedly argue that such state-based initiatives conflict with federal law.

Clean Air Act

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Taking A Data-Driven Tour of Air Pollution Law

Legal Planet

JULY 25, 2022

Earlier this year, a team of economists published a retrospective paper on the Clean Air Act. Some of the findings are not surprises: stricter regulations actually do result in improved air quality. Many people identify that discipline with cost-benefit analysis and assume that economists are opposed to regulation.

Air Pollution

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Livestock Operations Are Responsible for Over Half of California’s Methane Emissions—Why Won’t CARB Regulate Them?

Legal Planet

OCTOBER 26, 2023

In these “carbon intensity” calculations, CARB is not allowed to count reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are already required by law. The absence of baseline regulation of dairy operations isn’t limited to greenhouse gas emissions. Agricultural employees are excluded from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.

Regulations

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Losing Chevron: What Does It Mean for California?

Legal Planet

JUNE 28, 2024

For example, there’s a current challenge to EPA’s waiver under the Clean Air Act for the Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Trucks regulations (ACT), which require that zero-emission trucks represent an increasing proportion of in-state heavy-duty truck sales. (A

Clean Air Act

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Clean Air Act rulemakings don’t follow the normal rules – just ask the Supreme Court

Environmental News Bits

APRIL 24, 2025

Every law student learns that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) outlines the default rules for how federal agencies propose and finalize regulations and how courts review them. But for many significant actions under the Clean Air Act (CAA), it’s a different story entirely.

Clean Air Act

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How the Supreme Court’s Chevron Decision Benefits Big Oil and Gas

Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 1, 2024

This decision , reached with a 6-3 majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts, marks a significant shift in administrative law and has profound implications for environmental regulations and climate accountability. the EPA or FDA), staffed with experts, to interpret and implement laws within their purview effectively.

Regulations

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NEPA as an environmental back-stop

Legal Planet

MARCH 28, 2025

Why might we have an environmental review statute such as NEPA when we already have a range of other environmental protection statutes such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and more? One possibility is that NEPA serves as a back-stop for other environmental laws, filling in gaps they do not cover.

Clean Water Act

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Shell Falcon Pipeline LP Pleads No Contest To Criminal Charges For Violating The State Clean Streams Law In Allegheny, Beaver, Washington Counties; Will Pay $300,000 In Penalties

PA Environment Daily

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

These penalties are in addition to a $670,000 civil penalty DEP accessed against Shell Falcon Pipeline and its contractor Minnesota Limited LLC for violations of its permit and other laws and regulations that occurred in 2019 and 2020 during pipeline construction. Read more here. Read more here. Decrease To 31.2%

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Establishing Standing in Citizen Suits Under the Clean Air Act: Breathing Polluted Air May Not Suffice

Law and Environment

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Earlier this month, Judge William Young dismissed for lack of standing claims brought by the Conservation Law Foundation alleging that bus companies violated anti-idling regulations. Either way, whether you are a potential plaintiff or a potential defendant, this case warrants careful reading.

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Environmentalism and the Supreme Court

Legal Planet

AUGUST 26, 2021

The same is true in environmental law. Was it a fundamental paradigm shift, re-centering the law on new values? With all this in mind, here are the cases that I see as making up the canon and anti-canons of environmental law. The case involved the lynchpin of the Clean Air Act, EPA’s power to set national air quality standards.

Clean Air Act

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Understanding Loper: The Grandfather Clause

Legal Planet

JULY 11, 2024

Thus, “the holdings of those cases that specific agency actions are lawful—including the Clean Air Act holding of Chevron itself—are still subject to statutory stare decisis [Latin for standing by past decisions] despite our change interpretive methodology.”

Clean Air Act

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Guidance Is Still Not the Same as Regulation

Law and Environment

AUGUST 18, 2023

In rejecting Montana’s SIP, EPA repeatedly pointed to Montana’s failure to comply with EPA’s guidelines for determining Best Available Retrofit Technology, even though the guidelines were not enforceable regulations. Congress required in the Clean Air Act that EPA develop guidelines for determining BART.

Regulations

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Supreme Court Sidelines Science, Threatens Public Health: These Rules-in-Progress Show What’s at Stake

Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 9, 2024

When facilities emit less pollution, their regulations require less specific record-keeping and monitoring. How stringently facilities are monitored should be based on science and on the impacts on the people who live nearby—not by a judge’s ideological viewpoint on regulation.

Toxic Substances Control Act

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Happy 50th Anniversary, Federal Clean Water Act

Legal Planet

OCTOBER 18, 2022

The Clean Water Act (CWA), one of the nation’s most important environmental laws, is 50 years old today. In virtually all other nations, enforcement of water pollution control and other environmental laws is the sole responsibility of government regulators. (credit: Amazon).

Clean Water Act

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Memphis Facility Emitting Cancer-Causing Ethylene Oxide Gas to Close

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

MCAP, in partnership with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), petitioned the county health department to use its emergency powers to limit emissions from the facility. We also estimated that EtO emissions contributed to more than 80 percent of the cancer risk attributable to toxic air pollution around the facility.

Air Pollution

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Climate Policy: What’s Happening at the State Level?

Legal Planet

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Under the Clean Air Act, California has the unique ability to set its own standards for tailpipe emissions from new vehicles, including greenhouse gases. The law also includes funding for offshore wind energy and electricity grid improvements, as well as incentives for electric vehicles and appliances. Download as PDF.

Carbon Emissions

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EPA’s Power Plant Carbon Rules Are Critical—and Complex. Here’s What to Know, and What to Watch.

Union of Concerned Scientists

APRIL 20, 2023

Multiple lines of analysis make clear that regardless of how cheap wind and solar power get, without directly addressing pollution from coal and gas plants, the country’s clean energy transition will not happen fast enough. Section 111 of the Clean Air Act constrains how EPA sets standards—but gives states wide latitude in implementation.

Clean Air Act

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Judicial Review After Loper Bright

Legal Planet

JULY 2, 2024

If a regulation was upheld in the Chevron era, that decision remains valid statutory precedent. ” This actually pretty typical language in environmental statutes,, such as section 202 of the Clean Air Act, which EPA has used to limit carbon emissions from cars. Is this an exceptional situation?

Clean Air Act

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What is Ethylene Oxide? Answers to Your Questions about the Cancer-Causing Chemical

Union of Concerned Scientists

OCTOBER 6, 2022

EPA proposed changes to its MON rule in 2019, regulating toxic emissions for about 200 chemical plants that produce solvents, plastics, and pesticides across the country. EPA plans to issue a Clean Air Act rulemaking for commercial sterilizers later this year and for other chemical facilities soon, as well.

Clean Air Act

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Climate change and the US Clean Air Act

Environment, Law, and History

DECEMBER 11, 2020

President Nixon signs the Clean Air Act of 1970 Richard Revesz recently posted a piece on climate change regulation, " Bostock and the End of the Climate Change Double Standard" , forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law.

Clean Air Act

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DEP Determines Rulemaking Petition Submitted By Environmental, Health Groups To Adopt More Protective Setbacks From Shale Gas Wells Is An Action The Environmental Quality Board Has Statutory Authority To Take

PA Environment Daily

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

On November 21, the Department of Environmental Protection announced it has determined , in response to a rulemaking petition, the state Environmental Quality Board has the statutory authority to adopt a regulation setting more protective setbacks from shale gas wells for homes, schools and streams in its initial petition review.

Natural Gas

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West Virginia v. EPA Limits the Federal Government’s Power to Promote Clean Energy and Combat Climate Change

Law and Environment

JULY 1, 2022

EPA on Thursday, June 30, 2022, curbing the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants across the country. The decision focuses on EPA’s authority under a specific section of the Clean Air Act. What did the Court decide?

Clean Energy

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Protecting Public Health Is Complicated. But Science Can Help, and the Time Is Now.

Union of Concerned Scientists

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

It was a big step towards providing adequate health protections, but Environmental regulations need to look at people, not just pollutants—and the way to get there is by assessing cumulative impacts. However, since major US environmental laws are enacted to protect the air, water, and land separately (i.e.

Air Pollution

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The Supreme Court’s Latest Decision Is a Blow to Stopping Climate Change

Union of Concerned Scientists

JULY 3, 2022

Instead, the Court has ruled that, though the agency can still regulate carbon emissions, it must do so narrowly and set standards solely based on options available at individual power plant facilities, such as efficiency measures to improve plant-level heat rates.

Climate Change

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NRDC: Regulation Is Too Weak For Radioactive Oil And Gas Drilling Wastewater, Other Waste

PA Environment Daily

JULY 27, 2021

A new NRDC report describes these risks and how weak regulations fail to appropriately protect workers and communities. Despite the clear health risks, there are no dedicated federal regulations to ensure comprehensive and safer management of radioactive oil and gas materials. What does this mean for workers and communities?

Waste

Waste Regulations 2011 Radiation

Our Environmental Statutes Are Broken

Law and Environment

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

The Clean Water Act – It’s routine for EPA to take more than 10 years to act on NPDES permit renewals. The Clean Air Act – The Supreme Court has ruled that it does not provide authority for EPA to address the defining issue of our time. They created a pathway towards cleaning our air, water, and land.

Clean Air Act

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Learning to Name Environmental Problems

Legal Planet

JANUARY 10, 2023

It was only once that shift was made that we could begin to think of contaminated rivers, smog, and clearcutting as part of the same body of law. In other words, it was only then that we could in terms of “environmental law” rather than distinct bodies of rules governing a scattering of different situations.

Air Pollution

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Has the 10th Circuit Paved the Way for More Clean Air Act Mobile Source Citizen Suits?

Environment Next

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

In a case that could open the door to more citizen suits to enforce mobile source provisions of the Clean Air Act—a category of enforcement actions that has so far failed to gain much traction—the 10 th Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion broadly upholding a non-profit organization’s standing.

Clean Air Act

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U.S. Dept. Of Justice Indicts Erie Coke (Coal) And Corporate Officer For Violating Federal Clean Air Act Over 4 Years

PA Environment Daily

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

On November 17, Erie Coke Corporation, along with a corporate officer, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Erie on among other charges, Violation of the Clean Air Act, United States Attorney Cindy K. Chung announced today. The eight-count Indictment, returned on Nov.

Clean Air Act

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The Supreme Court & Interstate Pollution

Legal Planet

JUNE 27, 2024

Months ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an “emergency” request to stay EPA’s new rule regulating interstate air pollution. A Supreme Court case called EME Homer upheld EPA’s general approach to regulating interstate air pollution. By law, that suit had to be brought in the D.C.

Air Pollution

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Minnesota Can Do More to Protect People from Ethylene Oxide Emissions

Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 1, 2023

While the agency has failed to update the rule as required under the Clean Air Act, last year, EPA identified 23 “elevated cancer risk” commercial sterilizers and is currently working to inform communities and work with state regulators and the facilities to decrease emissions. But much more is needed. What can be done?

2016

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Federal Court Upholds SCAQMD Warehouse Rule

Clean Energy Law

DECEMBER 21, 2023

A district court has ruled that federal law does not preempt an indirect source rule that targets emissions associated with warehouses in Southern California. The California Attorney General, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and a group of environmental NGOs intervened in defense of Rule 2305.

Clean Air Act

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US EPA proposed Clean Air Act endangerment finding targets aviation fuel

Environmental News Bits

NOVEMBER 11, 2022

Read the full story at the National Law Review. On October 17, 2022, the United States Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposed finding that lead air pollution may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare within the meaning of Section 231(a) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C.

Clean Air Act

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I Don’t Make the Rules, I Comment on Them

Union of Concerned Scientists

MAY 12, 2023

It is one thing for Congress to pass a law. It is entirely different thing for a federal agency to make a rule (in other words, regulations) in accordance with that law. For context, Safer Communities by Chemical Accident Prevention is a rule related to the RMP and issued by the EPA, in accordance with the Clean Air Act.

Regulations

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NSR Enforcement Lives On (For Now) — A Split Decision for Ameren

Law and Environment

AUGUST 27, 2021

The 8 th Circuit Court of Appeals has largely affirmed a District Court order finding that Ameren Missouri violated the NSR provisions of the Clean Air Act in making major modifications to its Rush Island facility. 7413(b), expressly provides for injunctive relief to redress violations of the Act.”.

Clean Air Act

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Catch 22 at the Supreme Court

Legal Planet

JUNE 30, 2022

CT , the Supreme Court said this: We hold that the Clean Air Act and the EPA actions it authorizes displace any federal common law right to seek abatement of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants. Regulating power plant emissions is a complex undertaking. at 528–529. Now, in West Virginia v.

Carbon Dioxide

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What Happened During the Montana Youth Climate Trial

Legal Planet

JULY 12, 2023

The bench trial took place last month in the state capitol, Helena, where 16 youth plaintiffs ages 5 to 22 made the case that Montana’s unwavering promotion of fossil fuels violates the state constitution’s guarantee to a “clean and healthful environment.” This is not supposed to be a town hall or a popularity contest,” he said.

Fossil Fuels

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EQB Overwhelmingly Approves Emergency Regulation Setting VOC/Methane Limits For Conventional Oil & Gas Facilities; Republicans Vote Against

PA Environment Daily

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

On November 30, the Environmental Quality Board voted 15 to 2 to approve the emergency regulation setting VOC/methane emission limits for conventional oil and gas facilities. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) voted no on the regulation. Representatives for Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming) and Rep. Read more here. Read more here. Read more here. “We

Regulations

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EPA Will Reconsider the Ozone NAAQS — What Is An Adequate Margin of Safety, Anyway?

Law and Environment

NOVEMBER 1, 2021

On the other hand, government regulation is about making hard choices – and the structure of the Clean Air Act leaves us without a mechanism to make those hard choices. I remain one of the few who believe in stringent regulation and the use of cost-benefit analysis in getting there.

Ozone

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UCS Testimony on the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit

Union of Concerned Scientists

MARCH 25, 2024

Department of the Treasury is hosting a public hearing on the December 2023 proposed regulations governing implementation of the Section 45V Credit for Production of Clean Hydrogen. The proposed regulations clearly adhere to that framework, fully comporting with a plain reading of the text.

Clean Energy

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The Good Neighbor Provision on Steroids: Third Circuit Ruling Resurrects Clean Air Act Section 126(b)

The Energy Law

JULY 23, 2013

In the recent ruling, the Third Circuit held that it was reasonable for EPA to interpret Section 126(b) to be an “independent mechanism for enforcing interstate pollution control,” thereby giving EPA authority to directly regulate a specific source in an upwind state. See GenOn REMA, LLC v. 12-1022, slip op. at 29 (3d Cir. 7426(c)).

Clean Air Act

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The Top-Ten Lower Court Decisions on Environmental Law

The Ten Most Important U.S. Environmental Laws

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Trending Sources

U.S. Climate Law: A Broad & Rapidly Growing Field

Webinars

State-Level Actions To Decarbonize Aviation

Taking A Data-Driven Tour of Air Pollution Law

Livestock Operations Are Responsible for Over Half of California’s Methane Emissions—Why Won’t CARB Regulate Them?

Losing Chevron: What Does It Mean for California?

Clean Air Act rulemakings don’t follow the normal rules – just ask the Supreme Court

How the Supreme Court’s Chevron Decision Benefits Big Oil and Gas

NEPA as an environmental back-stop

Shell Falcon Pipeline LP Pleads No Contest To Criminal Charges For Violating The State Clean Streams Law In Allegheny, Beaver, Washington Counties; Will Pay $300,000 In Penalties

Establishing Standing in Citizen Suits Under the Clean Air Act: Breathing Polluted Air May Not Suffice

Environmentalism and the Supreme Court

Understanding Loper: The Grandfather Clause

Guidance Is Still Not the Same as Regulation

Supreme Court Sidelines Science, Threatens Public Health: These Rules-in-Progress Show What’s at Stake

Happy 50th Anniversary, Federal Clean Water Act

Memphis Facility Emitting Cancer-Causing Ethylene Oxide Gas to Close

Climate Policy: What’s Happening at the State Level?

EPA’s Power Plant Carbon Rules Are Critical—and Complex. Here’s What to Know, and What to Watch.

Judicial Review After Loper Bright

What is Ethylene Oxide? Answers to Your Questions about the Cancer-Causing Chemical

Climate change and the US Clean Air Act

DEP Determines Rulemaking Petition Submitted By Environmental, Health Groups To Adopt More Protective Setbacks From Shale Gas Wells Is An Action The Environmental Quality Board Has Statutory Authority To Take

West Virginia v. EPA Limits the Federal Government’s Power to Promote Clean Energy and Combat Climate Change

Protecting Public Health Is Complicated. But Science Can Help, and the Time Is Now.

The Supreme Court’s Latest Decision Is a Blow to Stopping Climate Change

NRDC: Regulation Is Too Weak For Radioactive Oil And Gas Drilling Wastewater, Other Waste

Our Environmental Statutes Are Broken

Learning to Name Environmental Problems

Has the 10th Circuit Paved the Way for More Clean Air Act Mobile Source Citizen Suits?

U.S. Dept. Of Justice Indicts Erie Coke (Coal) And Corporate Officer For Violating Federal Clean Air Act Over 4 Years

The Supreme Court & Interstate Pollution

Minnesota Can Do More to Protect People from Ethylene Oxide Emissions

Federal Court Upholds SCAQMD Warehouse Rule

US EPA proposed Clean Air Act endangerment finding targets aviation fuel

I Don’t Make the Rules, I Comment on Them

NSR Enforcement Lives On (For Now) — A Split Decision for Ameren

Catch 22 at the Supreme Court

What Happened During the Montana Youth Climate Trial

EQB Overwhelmingly Approves Emergency Regulation Setting VOC/Methane Limits For Conventional Oil & Gas Facilities; Republicans Vote Against

EPA Will Reconsider the Ozone NAAQS — What Is An Adequate Margin of Safety, Anyway?

UCS Testimony on the Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit

The Good Neighbor Provision on Steroids: Third Circuit Ruling Resurrects Clean Air Act Section 126(b)

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