Appeals Court Restores Scaled-Back Economic Test For Wetland Permits

摘要

A federal appeals court has overturned a precedent-setting lower court ruling that had raised the bar for what project costs the Army Corps of Engineers can consider when granting wetland fill permits under the Clean Water Act, but the court also opened the door to requiring the Corps to vigorously weigh permits' impacts to endangered species' habitat. "I would say the district court opinion sent a strong pro-wetland precedent, and unfortunately that has been dis pensed with, so on some level we're returning to the status quo," says an environmentalist involved with the suit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Nov. 29 ruled in Sierra Club et al. v. Robert Van Antwerp, et al to overturn a lower court decision from 2010 that found the Corps may not take a developer's ability to profit from a development as a primary consideration of whether to approve a CWA section 404 dredge-and-fill permit. The ruling is available on InsideEpa.com. SeEpage 2 for details.