The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has rejected environmentalists' petition to rehear their suit over the EPA's Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) permit rule for cooling water intake structures, letting stand a decision that broadly upheld the rule as stringent enough to satisfy both the water law and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). "The panel that determined the appeal has considered the request for panel rehearing, and the active members of the Court have considered the request for rehearing en banc. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition is denied," reads the 2nd Circuit's unsigned Nov. 16 order in Cooling Water Intake Structure Coalition, et al., v. EPA, et al. The order is available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 216912) The 2014 CWA rule sets out a case-by-case process for permit-writers to determine the "best technology available" (BTA) for reducing harms to aquatic life from cooling water intakes at power plants and other industrial facilities - rejecting environmentalists' push to set a single nationwide BTA standard.
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