A Second District Court Judge Remands CWA 401 Rule Without Vacatur

摘要

A federal district court judge in Pennsylvania has granted EPA's request to remand without vacatur a Trump-era rule that narrowed how states evaluate whether federal permits protect state water quality standards, becoming the second such judge to reject environmentalists' claims that vacatur is necessary to prevent harm.Such decisions generally ease agency efforts to revise regulations because it avoids a vacatur that environmentalists are seeking, which would otherwise force officials to start any new rulemaking from scratch. But Biden administration officials in this and similar cases have instead argued vacatur is unwarranted because they already are planning a new rulemaking where environmentalists can press forward with their arguments.In his Aug. 6 ruling in Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al. v. EPA, Senior Judge Michael Baylson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania says remand is appropriate because the agency has indicated its clear intent to revise the Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 rule on its own."It would not serve interests of judicial economy to continue a case regarding a Rule that will likely no longer to be law once the agency makes its revisions. Thus, the key question here is whether vacatur of the Rule is appropriate," he says.