As construction industry groups await a Supreme Court ruling in a narrowly focused Clean Water Act case, they also are seeking clues as to how the justices may view a much more important matter that has not yet come before them—an expected frontal challenge to a wide-ranging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-Army Corps of Engineers regulation governing federal jurisdiction over the “waters of the United States.”
Michigan unveiled a plan to push pipe replacement and toughen state drinking-water rules, but Congress adjourned without passing a federal-aid package and participants in the city’s unfolding saga traded blame at heated Washington hearings.
Merrick B. Garland, President’s Obama’s nominee to fill the U.S. Supreme Court seat left open by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February, has a history of giving deference to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in clean air and other environmental cases and has sided more often with EPA than industry, according to SCOTUSblog, which analyzes high court cases.
For years, Chesapeake Bay has been the subject of dire reports: dwindling fish, crab and oyster populations, loss of native underwater grasses, eroding shorelines, murky water and algae blooms caused by excessive levels of nitrogen and phosphorus.
The Westar Energy constructed-wetland treatment system in northeast Kansas uses a novel, two-tiered approach to remove environmentally sensitive metals and selenium in wastewater effluent from a coal plant before they can harm natural vegetation and wildlife.
Critics contend that the Dept. of Energy’s loan-guarantee and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) programs are a burden on taxpayers, but current and former DOE officials disagree, saying the programs will enable the U.S. to retain its leadership in an increasingly competitive global energy marketplace.
With Republicans vowing to block any Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly on Feb. 13, the fate of cases pending before the court, or that could end up on its future docket, has been clouded with uncertainty.