Articles

Credit for saying the obvious

July 06, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff The AP released this article over the weekend on the Clean Water Act and its "citizen suit" provisions, which authorizes private individuals to sue other private actors for civil penalties payable to the feds.  I'm quoted in it saying the obvious (but nevertheless true): Polluters are ...

Articles

Jurisdiction? What jurisdiction?

April 21, 2011 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Here's a sleeper case decided last month that has left me a little confused.  In Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition v. Coal-Mac, Inc., an environmental group brought a citizen suit action under the Clean Water Act (as well as a federal mining law) against a number of coal companies.  The group conten ...

Articles

Rivers are rivers

January 08, 2013 | By TONY FRANCOIS

and the water in them is water.  While these tautologies rest on the identity principle, words are not always what they seem when the EPA and the NRDC get hold of them. Two recent federal court decisions on the scope of the Clean Water Act provide useful examples of the principle that words in statutes have … ...