Source: https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/publications/2017/02/trumps-enviro-law-impact-may-not-be
Timestamp: 2018-09-26 13:23:45
Document Index: 575543351

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 551', '§ 1365', '§ 7604', '§ 6972', '§ 9659', '§ 300', '§ 1270', '§ 1540', '§11046', '§ 2619', '§ 1415', '§ 4911', '§ 1515', '§ 1349', '§ 1342', '§ 122', '§ 86', '§ 7604', '§ 1365', '§ 6972']

Trump's Enviro Law Impact May Not Be What Many Anticipate | Publications and Presentations | Arnold & Porter
California Law360, Delaware Law360, Environmental Law360, Florida Law360, Illinois Law360, New Jersey Law360, New York Law360, Pennsylvania Law360, Public Policy Law360, Texas Law360
By Lester Sotsky Andy T. Wang
Environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) have long established themselves as key players in matters of environmental public policy, regulation and enforcement. The successes of their efforts are far too numerous to count and too diverse to categorize summarily. At all levels of government, ENGOs have prevailed in litigation that has forced agencies to regulate, overturned permitting decisions, and enforced compliance against those in violation of environmental laws and regulations.2 During the Trump administration, we would expect the ENGOs to focus their considerable fire power — with renewed vigor enhanced by growing memberships and contributions3 — in three discrete areas.
First, there is the well-traveled path of using the courts to obtain review and rejection of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations deemed nonconforming with statutory mandates. Specifically, any number of the environmental “rollback” initiatives discussed publicly to date by those associated with the new administration or their allies in Congress will require the EPA to go through rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act.4 More specifically, to rescind or amend many existing regulations, including those promulgated in the waning days of the Obama administration, rulemaking will be necessary.5 Those rules will, in turn, be subject to judicial review.
Making that demonstration, however, will take time (i.e., to amass a supportive administrative record), which may be contrary to the president’s style and methods to date, in which the deliberative process is eschewed in favor of speed. (For example, the president’s controversial ban on immigration from several predominately Muslim countries has been criticized not just on substantive/policy/legal grounds, but for the administration’s failure to (1) consult with key congressional leaders of its own party; (2) provide advance notice to its own top intelligence, U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials; and (3) take due care to draft an executive order with sufficient care, clarity and details).6 We predict that judicial review of EPA rulemakings will be a fertile area of environmental practice if that decision-making model persists.
Second, ENGOs can be expected to use litigation to force agencies to take regulatory action based on statutory requirements or past policy statements. A perfect example has been referred to as the “Numeric Nutrient Wars.” In 2008, five ENGOs sued the EPA to establish numeric nutrient criteria for the state of Florida, asserting that the EPA had a nondiscretionary obligation to establish such criteria under the Clean Water Act.7 The EPA, after initially opposing the ENGO suit, settled the litigation by agreeing to develop and propose the criteria. The EPA criteria were instantly challenged by the state of Florida, local governments and industry groups as arbitrary and capricious (and by the ENGOs as being insufficiently protective). A federal district court in Florida struck a portion of the rules, ordering the EPA to repropose elements of the nutrient criteria.8
Third, of course, are the opportunities provided by statute for citizen enforcement of compliance with environmental permits and regulations. Many federal statutes provide for such enforcement;9 and ENGOs have a long and often successful history of bringing these sometimes ready-made cases. For example, the Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s waters, unless authorized and subject to a discharge permit that sets appropriate discharge limitations.10 The Clean Water Act imposes the responsibility of monitoring and reporting permit noncompliance upon the permit holders, requiring them to submit discharge monitoring reports (DMRs).11 Self-reported noncompliances in DMRs have served as the basis for numerous lawsuits by ENGOs over the years.12
It is widely anticipated that the state of California will take positions and actions in significant contrast to the loosening of environmental controls promised by the Trump administration. Leading officials in California have proudly laid claim to that role and course of action. For example, “Gov. Jerry Brown unleashed a full-scale attack on President Donald Trump, declaring California won’t give up a string of policies ranging from climate change curbs to immigrant-friendly laws.”13
In some instances, actions by California to impose new or stricter requirements on the regulated community have had repercussions beyond the state’s boundaries. For example, the “check engine light” symbol in a vehicle is part of the on-board diagnostic (OBD) system, which, among other things, monitors a vehicle’s emissions control system to ensure it is working properly. Certifications of OBD systems now go through the California Air Resources Board instead of the EPA, mainly because CARB’s certification requirements are more stringent than those of the EPA.14 Certainly, it is reasonable to assume, given the politics now at play and the public statements of officials at the state and federal levels, that some in California will seek specifically to take legislative, regulatory enforcement, and other actions that will have transboundary consequences.15
Notwithstanding some Californian’s boast to represent the front line in opposition to relaxation of environmental enforcement or regulation, the state is by no means the only jurisdiction to have a record of stricter regulation or to manifest the intention to so behave in the coming years. Twenty-one states have a Democratic attorney general. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of New York, for example, has been outspoken about his intention to take on the new administration on environmental issues; he also issued a press release warning that he “stands ready to use the full power of his office to compel enforcement of our nation’s environmental laws.”16
First, plaintiffs’ lawyers can recover fees in many federal citizen suit enforcement actions to secure compliance with existing laws, regulations and permits.17 At the local and regional level, many organizations or plaintiffs’ firms with whom they collaborate may view this to be “low-hanging fruit,” in an era of lax enforcement despite self-reporting of noncompliance (e.g., publicly available DMRs).
Second, recent years have shown the plaintiffs bar to be creative in fashioning causes of action, damages theories and prayers for injunctive relief that coincidentally garner attorneys’ fees in attractive amounts in a wide variety of environmental protection and public health situation cases. These cases include anything from toxic mold, to fracking, to allegedly harmful chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).18
The prospect of diminished enforcement and regulatory retreat under the Trump administration would seemingly yield several attractive toxic tort opportunities for the plaintiffs bar. First, litigation against manufacturers or users of so-called “chemicals at risk” — i.e., those chemicals that have been tentatively, provisionally or newly identified as toxic or harmful to human health (by the EPA or other bodies), but exposure to which is continuing in certain circumstances at levels that are arguably harmful. The contention would be that lethargy or turnabouts by the EPA, in the face of past scientific findings or thesis, has allowed harmful exposure to injure populations of varied sizes, all of whom are entitled to damages. We do not credit the thesis nor address its merits as to any of a long list of chemicals that may become ripe for such litigation; we merely foresee that consequence to the EPA retreating from existing standards or pending initiatives in any number of its regulatory programs.
One disincentive in instituting such actions, at least for some plaintiffs lawyers, would be the inability to translate injunctive relief into compensable money damages for which attorneys’ fees would be derivative and lucrative. Consequently, one might theorize that the plaintiffs bar will seek to marry injunctive actions to abate imminent substantial endangerments with tort claims giving rise to potentially significant damages. For example, a citizen suit under RCRA is injunctive in nature, and courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to recover money damages.19 Some courts, however, have exercised supplemental jurisdiction over damages claims brought under state law that accompany the RCRA claim.20
For example, before his inauguration and while on the campaign trail, Trump stated that he intended to scrap the EPA. Just recently in a meeting with the executives of leading automobile companies, Trump stated that environmental regulations are “out of control” and that he would work to eliminate those regulations inhospitable to business.
See, e.g., Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. Ruckelshaus, No. CIV.A. 84-758, 1984 WL 6092, at *1 (D.D.C. Sept. 14, 1984) (ENGO challenging the EPA’s failure to promulgate NOx and particulate matter emission standards for vehicles). ENGOs have also petitioned the EPA to be more active in environmental enforcement. For example, they have petitioned the EPA to regulate the pesticide chlorpyrifos.
Money pours into environmental groups after Trump wins election, The Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 17, 2016. Indeed, when the EPA is active, it tends to be a leader and occupy the environmental “field.” But in times of inactivity, ENGOs may take the lead and be more active players, and making commensurate staffing hires. See Tammy Webber and John Flesher, Environmentalists preparing to battle Trump, GOP in court, The Associated Press, Jan. 29, 2017.
5 U.S.C. § 551(5) (defining rulemaking to mean the “agency process for formulating, amending, or repealing a rule”).
See Nicholas Fandos, Growing Number of GOP Lawmakers Criticize Trump’s Refugee Policy, The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2017; Josh Rogin, Inside the White House-Cabinet battle over Trump’s immigration order, The Washington Post, Feb. 4, 2017; Michael D. Shear and Ron Nixon, How Trump’s Rush to Enact an Immigration Ban Unleashed Global Chaos, The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2017.
Court Paves Way for EPA to Withdraw Proposed Federal Nutrient Criteria for Florida.
Ultimately, the EPA accepted criteria subsequently promulgated by the state of Florida, thereby eliminating the “necessity” of the EPA promulgating its revised, federal criteria, because Section 303 of the Clean Water Act delegates setting such standards to the states and empowers the EPA to step in and issue them only upon finding federal action is “necessary.”
Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365; Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7604; Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6972; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. § 9659; Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 U.S.C. § 300j-8; Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, 30 U.S.C. § 1270; Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g); Emergency Planning and Community Right To Know Act, 42 U.S.C. §11046(a)(1); Toxic Substances Control Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2619; Ocean Dumping Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1415(g); Noise Control Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4911; Deepwater Ports Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1515; Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1349.
33 U.S.C.§ 1342.
40 C.F.R. § 122.41.
See, e.g., Pub. Interest Research Group of New Jersey Inc. v. Elf Atochem N. Am., Inc., 817 F. Supp. 1164, 1168 (D.N.J. 1993).
See Governor takes aim at Trump, The San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 24, 2017.
See 40 C.F.R. § 86.1806-17.
For example, Gov. Brown has also pledged to continue and expand the state’s cap-and-trade program, which will no doubt affect other states. One potential downside to increased environmental regulation at the state level, or the increased environmental presence of some states as compared to other states, is the potential for disparate regulations or requirements across the states, which may lead to higher compliance costs and unpredictability.
Statement From A.G. Schneiderman On President Trump’s EPA Grant And Contract Freeze.
See, e.g., Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7604(d); Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(d); Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6972(e).
See Joel Currier, St. Louis jury orders Monsanto to pay $46.5 million in latest PCB lawsuit, The St. Louis Dispatch, May 16, 2016; Jason Morris, Texas family plagued with ailments gets $3M in 1st-of-its-kind fracking judgment, CNN, April 26, 2014; New Haverford Partnership v. Stroot, 772 A.2d 792 (Del. 2001) (toxic mold).
See, e.g., Mehrig v. KFC Western Inc., 516 U.S. 479, 484-86 (1996).
See Murray v. Bath Iron Works, 867 F.Supp. 33, 47-50 (D. Maine 1994).