Articles

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Last Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency that a landowner does not have the right of immediate judicial review when he receives a compliance order from the EPA for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act (PLF represents the appellants, Michael and Cha ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff In late February, PLF requested the United States Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit's decision in Sackett v. United States.  The case concerns an Idaho couple who just wanted to build a family home, and were blindsided by the US Environmental Protection Agency with charges that they illegally filled ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff In a post today on the Times' Green Blog, Felicity Barringer writes about Mike and Chantell Sackett's struggle against the EPA to get their day in court.  The article does a good job of describing the difficulty the Sacketts are in, now that they have received a compliance order from EPA:  either ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff World Net Daily has an excellent piece today on the plight of Mike and Chantell Sackett, PLF clients who are fighting for the right to have their day in court against the EPA.  The agency issued the Sacketts a compliance order under the Clean Water Act, contending that they had illegally filled wetlands on thei ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff The Legal Planet Blog had two posts yesterday on the Sackett case, from Professor Richard Frank and Professor Holly Doremus.  Professor Doremus suggests in her post that the Sacketts could have avoided all this trouble had they simply applied for a jurisdictional determination from the U.S. Army Corps of Engine ...

Author: Damien M. Schiff Last week I had the chance to visit again PLF's clients Mike and Chantell Sackett in Priest Lake, Idaho.  PLF represents the Sacketts in their now four-year struggle to build a family home for themselves near the Lake.  Their homebuilding has been stopped since 2007 because of an EPA compliance order which c ...

Author: Anne Hayes Naturally, PLF is extremely pleased that the United States Supreme Court granted the petition for writ of certiorari in the Sacketts' case against the EPA.  However, we should point out that the Sacketts' situation, while a devastating development to them, is not new under the sun.  The EPA has been abusing la ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Today PLF filed its opening brief in Sackett v. EPA, our Supreme Court case addressing the question of whether landowners have a right to challenge EPA's assertions of wetlands jurisdiction over their property.  Our brief addresses two related issues.  Did Congress intend to preclude landowners like t ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Last week, PLF clients Mike and Chantell Sackett and I appeared on the Lou Dobbs Fox Business show to discuss the Sacketts' testimony at a Congressional roundtable on EPA abuse hosted by Senator Rand Paul.  As evidence of EPA abuse, I discussed some internal EPA documents that General Electric Co. had ...