High Court's Logging Roads Case Weighs On Appeal Of Utility Pole Suit

摘要

Appellate judges considering novel litigation seeking to regulate stormwater runoff from utility poles under the Clean Water Act (C WA) are suggesting delaying its ruling until after the Supreme Court rules in a separate but related case on whether logging road conduits can be similarly subjected to CWA permit requirements. During Oct. 16 oral arguments in Ecological Rights Foundation (ERF) v. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), et ah, Judge Consuelo M. Callahan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit predicted that the high court was going to overturn the circuit's 2011 ruling in the logging roads case, Northwest Environmental Defense Center (NEDC) v. Brown, and asked ERF's lawyer whether the panel should hold off in the utility pole suit to await guidance from the high court.