Articles

The EPA should get on with Clean Water Act reform

August 16, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

For many years, PLF has served as advocate for ordinary Americans facing byzantine regulation of their land by the EPA’s water bureaucrats. In 2006 our client John Rapanos won his case at the Supreme Court, establishing that EPA’s regulations defining “navigable waters” were illegal. But rather than follow Justice Scalia ...

Articles

#MarksMadness

March 30, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

PLF filed a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court of the United States a few months ago, in Hughes v. United States, and the Court heard oral argument in the case this week. The case asks the Supreme Court to provide better guidance to the lower courts on what to do when the … ...

Articles

Weekly litigation update — August 12, 2017

August 12, 2017 | By JAMES BURLING

Wheat farming goes on trial Tuesday EPA defends its actions in response brief filed with Sixth Circuit Critical habitat for frogs and a toad challenged Amicus brief filed in Indian “reserved” groundwater dispute Petition for rehearing denied in Utah prairie dog case Pennsylvania school boards may flout the law Siskiyou County appeal on ...

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PLF files amicus brief in Clean Water Act case

July 21, 2017 | By MARK MILLER

Today Pacific Legal Foundation asked the Ninth Circuit to accept an amicus brief, written on behalf of Mike and Chantell Sackett, as well as John Duarte and Duarte Nursery, supporting the defendant in United States v. Joseph David Robertson. The issue we comment upon involves how the courts should apply the Supreme Court’s Rapanos decision ...

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PLF uses Congressional Review Act to challenge illegally enforced wetlands guidance

May 31, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Last Friday, we filed a motion in federal court in the Duarte Nursery case, asking the judge to exclude evidence based on the 2008 Post-Rapanos Guidance because it was never submitted to Congress for review under the Congressional Review Act and is therefore, under that Act, not in effect and unenforceable. Followers of PLF’s Red … ...

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Congressional leaders question attorney general about Duarte Nursery case

May 31, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Last Thursday, the chairmen of the House Agriculture and Judiciary Committees sent this letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, stating their concern that the Clean Water Act is being used to regulate and enforce against plowing and other normal farming practices that are not subject to permitting requirements under the Act: The prosecution of Mr ...

Articles

Concerns over Duarte case remain for US Senators

April 28, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

On Wednesday of this week, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing on the legal and technical flaws in the Obama Administration’s 2015 WOTUS definition.* During the hearing, Sen. Ernst (R – IA) asked panelist and Wisconsin Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin about the Duarte Nursery case. Tseytlin agreed that he ...

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PLF opposes government effort to dismiss Duarte Nursery retaliation appeal

August 26, 2016 | By TONY FRANCOIS

We previously reported our appeal to the Ninth Circuit in the Duarte Nursery case. Today’s update is that the Justice Department has asked the Ninth Circuit to dismiss the appeal, which we oppose. This is part of the Corps of Engineers’ ongoing effort to avoid responsibility for its retaliation against Duarte Nursery’s exercise of ...

Articles

PLF challenges federal immunity from suit in Ninth Circuit

July 29, 2016 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Recently the trial court in Duarte Nursery v Corps of Engineers dismissed our clients’ First Amendment retaliation claim against the government, on the ground that sovereign immunity shields the federal government from having to defend the claim. The legal doctrine is that the United States government is intrinsically immune from all suits ag ...