Posted on March 2, 2010 by Eva Fromm O”Brien
The United States Supreme Court recently declined to hear three relatively high-profile environmental cases: Croplife America v. Baykeeper (a permitting clash between FIFRA and CWA); Texas Water Development Board v. Department of Interior (weighing the designation of a nature refuge under NEPA versus economic development); and Rose Acre Farms Inc. v. United States (regulatory taking claim as a result of agency action). After a 2008-2009 term where the Court seemed to take aim at the environmentalist cause, the Court may have put some wind back in the environmentalist’s sails by declining to consider these three separate industry challenges to federal environmental regulations.
EPA Rulemaking for CWA & FIFRA Permitting
In Croplife America v. Baykeeper, the Court decided not to review the Sixth Circuit’s year-old ruling in National Cotton Council v. EPA requiring farmers to secure Clean Water Act permits for the use of pesticides already permitted under FIFRA. EPA had claimed that FIFRA approval incorporated compliance with the Clean Water Act, however, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the government was obligated to ensure that farmers using pesticides were subject to both regulations. The decision had been stayed until April 2011 while EPA reviews and revises its NPDES permitting process to comply with the ruling.
Two different groups—one representing environmental interest groups and the other representing industry interest groups—opposed the EPA’s new permitting rule as exceeding the EPA’s interpretive authority, and argued that it would create redundant bureaucracy and hamper agricultural production by forcing farmers to decide between not applying pesticides and risking legal and enforcement actions for discharging without a permit.
Environmental Conservation versus Future Development
Another case denied review was Texas Water Development Board v. DOI, which weighed prospective future development against environmental conservation. The Supreme Court’s decision will disrupt any future plans by Dallas-area officials to build the proposed Lake Fastrill reservoir along the Neches River.
In Texas Water Development Board, the Fifth Circuit Court had unanimously upheld a lower court’s decision that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not violate the NEPA by designating 25,000 acres of east Texas wetlands as the Neches River National Wildlife Refuge. In opposing the designation, local governments asserted they would likely need to build the reservoir by 2050 in order to accommodate increased water demand. However, the Fifth Circuit found that this project may never take place or may occur at a different site. Importantly, the “effects of establishing the refuge, and thus precluding the reservoir, are highly speculative and cannot be shown to be the proximate cause of future water shortages in Dallas.”
Regulatory Taking Claims for Enforcement of Regulations
Finally, the Court declined to review Rose Acre Farms Inc. v. United States, a suit brought by an egg farm against the federal government for damages after a crack-down on potential salmonella contamination. Following an outbreak that was traced back to the farm, the USDA destroyed some of the farm’s eggs and required the company to sell others on the less-lucrative market for liquid, pasteurized eggs.
Rose Acre sued to recoup lost revenue, arguing that the government response constituted a “regulatory taking” under the Fifth Amendment. The Court of Federal Claims awarded Rose Acre $5.4 million in damages, but that award was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In its petition for review, Rose Acre Farms argued that the government responded to contamination fears in a way that focused the economic impact “narrowly and devastatingly, upon egg producers generally and Rose Acre specifically.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to pass on the case leaves the Federal Circuit’s decision as the precedent for future takings cases involving federal agencies. As such, the government may have less to fear from regulatory takings claims when enforcing its public health and environmental regulations.
Declining to hear these cases, while generally viewed as favorable to environmentalists, may be reconciled with the Court’s overall trends in environmental cases over the past several terms. None of these declined cases originated in the Ninth Circuit, a jurisdiction that seems to garner heightened scrutiny from the Supreme Court, as the Court has repeatedly reined the Ninth Circuit’s high-profile, often pro-environment decisions. The Court has shown that it will look to the plain language of an underlying statute and its overall structure in trying to interpret Congress’ intent. More importantly, when there is room for interpretation, the Court has emphasized giving deference to agency expertise and decision-making. Thus, the question is not whether the Court may be pro- or anti-environment in a given term—it is simply whether it is abiding by its core principles and themes.
Tags: Litigation