On July 28, 2015, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit remanded part of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) to USEPA for reconsideration, finding that the Agency had erred in 2014 sulfur dioxide and ozone budgets for 13 states.  The next opportunity to influence outcome will be US EPA’s rulemaking process for re-setting budgets for these 13 states disproportionately burdened by the prior budget methodology.  The Court reasoned that these states’ budgets in CSAPR “required states to reduce pollutants beyond the point necessary” to achieve the desired air pollutant reduction in downwind states.

As previously reported, CSAPR was promulgated in 2011 as USEPA’s second attempt at implementing the “Good Neighbor” provision following the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), which was invalidated in 2010.  The Good Neighbor provision in the Clean Air Act (Act) provides that inter-state transport of certain air pollutants are to be reduced to levels that do not contribute significantly to downwind nonattainment of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).  USEPA interprets the significance threshold as 1% impact to downwind receptors and it identified 27 states whose emissions exceeded the significance threshold.  However, due to the complexity of assessing the relative amount of each upwind state’s contribution, USEPA imposed uniform emissions reductions—effectively mandating “over-control” in several instances.

On 2 July, the Administrative Court ruled in the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA’s) favour over a decision by an FSA veterinary contractor based at a slaughterhouse (following an inspection by a Meat Hygiene Inspector) to declare a beef carcase as unfit for human consumption [i]. The Association of Independent Meat Suppliers (AIMs) together with the affected meat company, claimed that there should be a right of appeal against this assessment of the Official Veterinarian and further, that such appeal should be by way of a hearing in the magistrates’ court.

The claimants argued on three grounds:

Introduction

Five years after originally consulting the public, the Law Commission has recently published its report on reforming the common law criminal offences of public nuisance and outraging public decency.  This note focuses on the proposed reforms to the offence of public nuisance.

Public nuisance is unusual in so far as it is both a criminal offence and a cause of action in tort.  It’s fair to say that public nuisance has divided opinion (at least in its criminal form) for many years; whilst its supporters value its elasticity and ability to address diverse environmental issues, its detractors contend that it is so nebulous that it runs contrary to modern notions of certainty in criminal law.  Certainly, public nuisance has encompassed a wide range of behaviours, from activities which directly impact upon the environment (such as depositing waste on land, as in Attorney General v Tod Heatley [1897] 1 Ch 560) to anti-social behaviour (such as disrupting sporting events).

Things couldn’t be going much worse for the California State Water Resources Control Board (“Board”). In the midst of one of California’s worst droughts on record that has seen water levels drop to historic lows in California Reservoirs, Governor Jerry Brown and the Board have been desperate to find and implement ways to conserve water and stretch supplies a little farther. On January 17, 2015, Governor Brown declared a drought State of Emergency and directed state officials to take all necessary actions to prepare for water shortages. As a result, the Board took steps to curtail water use in a variety of sectors, including municipal, agricultural, and environmental uses. The Board’s good deeds, however, are not going unpunished, as lawsuits have been filed over the last month against the Board by at least one city, several irrigation districts, and a handful of conservation groups.