Articles

Author:  Nicholas M. Gieseler Bad news this morning by way of the Eighth Circuit, as its decision in United States v. Bailey dealt a blow to property rights.  The decision granted the federal government jurisdiction over private property located more than 200 feet away from a navigable waterway.  Under Justice Sca ...

Author:    Damien M. Schiff Last week in Simsbury-Avon Preservation Society v. Metacon Gun Club, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a commonsense decision that the firing of lead bullets over dry land does not violate the Clean Water Act prohibition on the discharge of a pollutant into waters of the United States.  In the case, local ...

Author: Damien M. Schiff Last month, PLF filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners, to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency's unwarranted veto of a desperately needed flood control project in the lower Mississippi Delta.  The latest Impact Newsletter from the Board has an excellent article detailin ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Today's New York Times has this article contending that, at least from the US Environmental Protection Agency's perspective, that agency's ability to enforce the Clean Water Act and prevent the Nation's waters from becoming polluted has been seriously constrained by recent federal court rulings. The a ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff In a brief online article published Monday, The Economist reviewed a New York Times article (about which I blogged here) that purports to explain how recent Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Clean Water Act have seriously constrained the power of the federal government to regulate water quality.  Well, s ...

Author: Damien M. Schiff Last week, I argued PLF's appeal in Barnum Timber Co. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.  PLF represents Barnum Timber Co., a family-run timber harvesting operation based in Eureka, California.  In this case, PLF is suing EPA over the agen ...

Author: Damien M. Schiff Grist.com has this fairly well-balanced piece by Doug Kendall lauding retiring Justice John Paul Stevens' judicial decisions dealing with environmental law issues over his three-decade-plus tenure on the Supreme Court.  The article's thesis is that Justice Stevens universally practiced "deference to ...

Author: Reed Hopper Today, politicians in the House of Representatives introduced H.R.5088, euphemistically named, "America’s Commitment to Clean Water Act." This is a redo of the "Clean Water Restoration Act" which has languished in committee for years and purportedly addresses concerns that the "Clean Water Restorat ...

Author: Ted Hadzi-Antich This week Pacific Legal Foundation is celebrating Earth Day 2010 by devoting the PLF Blog to a different environmental topic every day. Today, Friday, April 23, we’re focusing on the Clean Water Act. Over the past 40 years, the Clean Water Act has been a tremendous success. Our lakes, rivers and streams … ...