To carry out its responsibilities under the nation’s environmental laws, EPA conducts an array of activities, such as promulgating regulations; issuing and denying permits; approving state programs; and issuing enforcement orders, plans, and other documents. Many of these activities may be subject to legal challenge.and Clean Water Act require EPA to take certain actions, such as issuing rules, to implement provisions of the law within certain statutorily designated time frames, and EPA is subject to legal challenge for not taking the mandatory actions by the required deadline. If the legal challenge is a deadline suit, EPA works with Justice to consider several factors in determining whether or not to settle the deadline suit and the terms of any settlement. Statutes establishing programs administered by EPA, and under which the agency may be sued, include 10 of the nation’s most prominent environmental laws, such as the Clean Air Act; Clean Water Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (better known as the Superfund law); Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act; Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and related provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; and Toxic Substances Control Act. Generally, the federal government has immunity from lawsuits, but federal laws authorize three types of suits related to EPA’s implementation of environmental laws. First, most of the major environmental statutes include “citizen suit” provisions authorizing citizens—including individuals, associations, businesses, and state and local governments—to sue EPA when the agency fails to perform an action mandated by law. These suits include deadline suits. Second, the major environmental statutes typically include judicial review provisions authorizing citizens to challenge certain EPA actions, such as promulgating regulations or issuing permits. Third, the Administrative Procedure Act authorizes challenges to certain agency actions that are considered final actions, such as rulemakings and decisions on permit applications. As a result, even if a particular environmental statute does not authorize a challenge against EPA for a final decision or regulation, the Administrative Procedure Act may do so. A lawsuit challenging EPA’s failure to act may begin when the aggrieved party sends EPA a notice of intent to sue, if required, and a lawsuit challenging a final EPA action begins when a complaint is filed in court. Before EPA takes final action, the public or affected parties generally have opportunities to provide comments and information to the agency. In addition, administrative appeals procedures are available—and in many cases required—to challenge EPA’s final action without filing a lawsuit in a court. For example, citizens can appeal an EPA air emission permit to the agency’s Environmental Appeals Board. These administrative processes provide aggrieved parties with a forum that may be faster and less costly than a court. Generally, the environmental statutes’ citizen suit provisions require a prospective plaintiff to first send EPA a formal notice of intent to sue. Conversely, neither these statutes’ judicial review provisions nor the Administrative Procedure Act impose a notice requirement. between the aggrieved party and EPA may occur anytime after the agency action, at any point during active litigation, and even after judgment. FWS’s mission is to work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. FWS is responsible for administering the Endangered Species Act for freshwater and land species. Under the act, FWS works to implement its requirements, such as consulting with federal agencies to determine if actions may affect listed species or habitats identified as critical to the species’ survival, and acting on applications for permits required when non-federal activities will result in take of threatened or endangered species. The act authorizes parties to file challenges to government actions affecting threatened and endangered species. These lawsuits can include deadline suits as well as other types of lawsuits. EPA has primary regulatory authority that allows citizens to file a deadline suit for laws including the following: the Superfund law; Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and Toxic Substances Control Act. According to EPA and Justice officials, when a deadline suit is filed, the agencies work together to determine how to respond to the lawsuit, including whether or not to negotiate a settlement with the plaintiff to issue a rule by an agreed upon deadline or allow the lawsuit to proceed. In making this decision, EPA and Justice consider several factors to determine which course of action is in the best interest of the government. According to EPA and Justice officials, these factors include (1) the cost of litigation, (2) the likelihood that EPA will win the case if it goes to trial, and (3) whether EPA and Justice believe they can negotiate a settlement that will provide EPA with sufficient time to complete a final rule if required to do so. EPA and Justice officials have often chosen to settle deadline suits when EPA has failed to fulfill a mandatory duty because it is very unlikely that the government will win the lawsuit. In many such cases, the only dispute is over the appropriate remedy (i.e., fixing a new date by which EPA should act). Additionally, in such cases, officials may believe that negotiating a settlement is the course of action most likely to create sufficient time for EPA to complete the rulemaking if it is required to issue a rule. EPA and Justice have an agreement under which both must concur in the settlement of any case in which Justice represents EPA. See 28 C.F.R. §§ 0.160-0.163. related to water quality criteria for pathogens and pathogen indicators. The Meese memorandum also provides that Justice should not enter into a settlement agreement that interferes with the agency’s authority to revise, amend, or promulgate regulations through the procedures set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act. As such, EPA officials stated that they have not, and would not agree to settlements in a deadline suit that finalizes the substantive outcome of the rulemaking or declare the substance of the final rule. As discussed in our August 2011 report, the number of environmental litigation cases brought against EPA each year from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2010 varied with no discernible trend. Similarly, data available from Justice, the Department of the Treasury, and EPA show that the costs associated with environmental litigation cases against EPA have varied from year to year for fiscal years 1998 through 2010, averaging at least $3.6 million per year with no discernible trend. Information regarding lawsuits against FWS is limited, with FWS data showing that the agency paid about $1.6 million in 26 cases from fiscal years 2004 through 2010. In August 2011, we reported that there were no aggregated data on environmental litigation or associated costs reported by federal agencies. The key agencies involved—Justice, EPA and Treasury— maintained certain data on individual cases in decentralized databases. In particular, each of Justice’s litigation components maintained a separate case management system to gather information related to individual cases. We were able to merge cases from two systems for purposes of our work. The average number of new cases filed against EPA each year was 155, ranging from a low of 102 new cases filed in fiscal year 2008 to a high of 216 cases filed in fiscal year 1997 (see fig. 1). In all, Justice defended EPA in nearly 2,500 cases from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2010. The greatest number of cases was filed in fiscal year 1997, which, according to a Justice official, may be explained by the fact that EPA revised its national ambient air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter in 1997, which may have caused some groups to sue. In addition, according to the same official, in 1997 EPA implemented a “credible evidence” rule, which also was the subject of additional lawsuits. The fewest cases against EPA (102) were filed in fiscal year 2008, and Justice officials were unable to pinpoint any specific reasons for the decline. In fiscal years 2009 and 2010, the caseload increased. A Justice official said that it is difficult to know why the number of cases might increase because litigants sue for different reasons, and some time might elapse between an EPA action and a group’s decision to sue. As shown in figure 2, most cases against EPA were brought under the Clean Air Act, which represented about 59 percent of the approximately 2,500 cases that were filed during the 16-year period of our August 2011 report (i.e., fiscal year 1995 through fiscal year 2010). Cases filed under the Clean Water Act represented the next largest group of cases (20 percent), and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act represented the third largest group of cases (6 percent). The lead plaintiffs filing cases against EPA during the 16-year period of our August 2011 report fit into several categories. The largest category comprised trade associations (25 percent), followed by private companies (23 percent), local environmental groups and citizens’ groups (16 percent), and national environmental groups (14 percent). Individuals, states and territories, municipal and regional government entities, unions and workers’ groups, tribes, universities, and a small number of others we could not identify made up the remaining plaintiffs (see table 1). According to the stakeholders we interviewed for our August 2011 report, a number of factors—particularly a change in presidential administration, the passage of regulations or amendments to laws, and EPA’s failure to meet statutory deadlines—affect plaintiffs’ decisions to bring litigation against EPA. Stakeholders did not identify any single factor driving litigation, but instead, attributed litigation to a combination of different factors. According to most of the stakeholders we interviewed, a new presidential administration is an important factor in groups’ decisions to bring suits against EPA. Some stakeholders suggested that a new administration viewed as favoring less enforcement could spur lawsuits from environmental groups in response, or industry groups could sue to delay or prevent the outgoing administration’s actions.