Articles

Today, PLF filed comments in response to an EPA request on whether the agency should abandon its support of the so-called "conduit" theory of Clean Water Act liability. The conduit theory has been used recently by a number of federal appellate and district courts to extend Clean Water Act liability to discharges of pollutants that reach regulated s ...

Today Pacific Legal Foundation joins the defense of Jack LaPant, a Northern California farmer whom the United States government is suing in federal court under the Clean Water Act, for plowing his farm without a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. The government's case is at odds with the text of the Clean Water Act: the discharge of dredg ...

Another lawsuit to challenge Seattle's war on landlords This week, we sued to challenge Seattle's Fair Chance Housing Ordinance on behalf of several landlords and the Rental Housing Association of Washington in Yim v. City of Seattle. The Fair Chance Housing Ordinance forbids landlords from asking for a criminal background check or denying someo ...

An important tool that the government and environmental groups use to sue landowners for alleged and long-ago discharges of pollution under the Clean Water Act is the so-called "continuing violation" doctrine. As its name implies, the doctrine teaches that, under certain circumstances, a wrongful act that is not remedied continues in time to be wro ...

Washington limits the reach of the public trust doctrine. Congress gets an earful on the problems with the federal permitting process Amicus Brief Filed in Challenge to San Francisco's Discriminatory Sign Ban Santa Barbara inspection case headed to a hearing Washington limits the reach of the public trust doctrine. Yesterday, the ...

Last year, following President Trump's executive order directing EPA to rewrite its disastrous 2015 regulation which magically redefined millions of acres of dry land across the nation as federally protected navigable waterways, PLF offered EPA some advice, not only on how to rewrite the rule to make it conform to the limits of the Clean Water Act, ...

Today, PLF filed an opening brief in the Ninth Circuit in Tin Cup, LLC v. Army Corps of Engineers. The case is brought by a small, family-owned pipe fabrication company that wishes to relocate to a new site for its expanding business. The company has not been able to start the relocation, however, because the Army Corps of Engineers has asserted ju ...

PLF Asks Michigan Supreme Court to Review Taking of Home for an $8 debt Oral Argument at the U.S. Sixth Circuit in Marquette County case Seattle's "involuntary speech - forced democracy" scheme appealed First Round Loss in Extortionate Permit Fee Case PLF, Ranchers tell federal agencies they cannot ignore economic costs of their dec ...

The Ninth Circuit just issued a disappointing decision affirming the federal conviction of a Montana man for building some ponds without a Clean Water Act permit. Joseph Robertson argued that the Constitution's Due Process Clause prevents the government from prosecuting him for violating the Act, because it is endlessly confusing as to where it app ...