Articles

This morning, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued From Preventing Pollution of Navigable and Interstate Waters to Regulating Farm Fields, Puddles and Dry Land:  A Senate Report on the Expansion of Jurisdiction Claimed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act.  Th ...

A few weeks ago I testified before a Senate subcommittee on various abuses of landowners perpetrated by EPA and the Corps under the Clean Water Act.  After the hearing, the committee posed additional questions focusing on the role of the federal government in cleaning up the nation’s waters, as well as the impacts on that … ...

So argues former GOP representative Sherwood Boehlert in last week’s Roll Call.  Actually, Mr. Boehlert makes several arguments, not all fiscally based, to support EPA’s and the Corps’ proposal to assert Clean Water Act jurisdiction to every stream, and probably every wetland, in the country. First, the rule “does not break ...

The old canard that all’s fair in love and war appears to be driving EPA policy.  This agency has declared “war” on coal mining and is not playing fair.  Among other things, coal mines are required to obtain certain discharge permits from the Corps of Engineers.  The process for submitting, reviewing and approving these permits ...

Now available is a post-decision podcast I recorded for the Federalist Society, which goes into greater detail on why I believe that, from the perspective of the Clean Water Act practitioner, this decision is much ado about nothing. … ...

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council that the Clean Water Act does not regulate the mere flow of polluted water from an upstream “improved” segment to a downstream “unimproved” segment of the same water of the United States.  The Cou ...

In case you haven’t had enough, the Federalist Society has published a podcast of me discussing Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. NRDC, a Clean Water Act case dealing with stormwater pollution, argued earlier this week. … ...

Last month I wrote about a very peculiar case just argued this week in the United States Supreme Court—Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council—concerning the Clean Water Act’s regulation of stormwater.  The case is peculiar because all the parties and the federal government as amicus agree o ...

The United States Supreme Court this Term will hear at least two cases arising under the Clean Water Act:  Decker v. Northwest Environmental Advocates, and Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The former concerns the legality of EPA’s regulation exempting owners and operators of forest roads from ob ...