Supreme Court sides with San Francisco on EPA water discharge rules
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules for the city of San Francisco under the Clean Water Act are overly vague, siding with the city after it appealed a lower court’s decision. San Francisco appealed the case to the Supreme Court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the EPA 2-1. In oral arguments before the court last October, the city argued the EPA’s discharge regulations could leave the city liable based on factors beyond its control. “They might as well have said: Do not violate the Clean Water Act,” Tara Steeley, an attorney for the city, told the court. In the ruling, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the statute requires the agency to outline specific limits on sewer overflows, rather than the generic limits that prompted San Francisco to sue. “Determining what steps a permittee must take to ensure that water quality standards are met is the EPA’s responsibility, and Congress has given it the tools needed to make that determination,” Alito wrote. “If the EPA does what the CWA demands, water quality will not suffer.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the court’s liberal bloc, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In a partial descent, Barrett called the majority conclusion “puzzling,” writing “[i]t is commonplace for ‘limitations’ to state “that a particular end result must be achieved and that it is up to the [recipient] to figure out what it should do.’” “For example, a company could impose spending ‘limitations’ by requiring each branch to spend no more than its allotted budget, while still leaving branch managers flexibility to determine how to allocate those funds,” she added. The ruling marks the court’s first ruling on a case pertaining to EPA authorities since it struck down the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which held that federal agencies rather than courts have broad latitude in interpreting ambiguities in the language of the law.
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules for the city of San Francisco under the Clean Water Act are overly vague, siding with the city after it appealed a lower court’s decision. San Francisco appealed the case to the Supreme Court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals...
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules for the city of San Francisco under the Clean Water Act are overly vague, siding with the city after it appealed a lower court’s decision.
San Francisco appealed the case to the Supreme Court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the EPA 2-1. In oral arguments before the court last October, the city argued the EPA’s discharge regulations could leave the city liable based on factors beyond its control.
“They might as well have said: Do not violate the Clean Water Act,” Tara Steeley, an attorney for the city, told the court.
In the ruling, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the statute requires the agency to outline specific limits on sewer overflows, rather than the generic limits that prompted San Francisco to sue.
“Determining what steps a permittee must take to ensure that water quality standards are met is the EPA’s responsibility, and Congress has given it the tools needed to make that determination,” Alito wrote. “If the EPA does what the CWA demands, water quality will not suffer.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the court’s liberal bloc, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In a partial descent, Barrett called the majority conclusion “puzzling,” writing “[i]t is commonplace for ‘limitations’ to state “that a particular end result must be achieved and that it is up to the [recipient] to figure out what it should do.’”
“For example, a company could impose spending ‘limitations’ by requiring each branch to spend no more than its allotted budget, while still leaving branch managers flexibility to determine how to allocate those funds,” she added.
The ruling marks the court’s first ruling on a case pertaining to EPA authorities since it struck down the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which held that federal agencies rather than courts have broad latitude in interpreting ambiguities in the language of the law.