Tag Archives: “sue-and-settle”

Pruitt Banishes “Sue and Settle” – A Solution In Search of a Problem?

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt today issued a Directive prohibiting the practice of “sue and settle.”  He also issued a Memorandum to senior staff explaining in more detail some of the concerns about “sue and settle.”  They are two very strange documents.

As to the substance of how EPA will handle future citizen suit claims, there are some specific concrete steps which individuals and groups across the political spectrum actually can support. … More

An Analysis of the Problems at the MBTA: Is This the Origin of “Sue-and-Settle”?

On Sunday, the Boston Globe had a fairly comprehensive look at the causes of the current failings of the MBTA.  MBTA-Bus-Snow (1)Interesting reading for those who like to belabor the obvious.  The short version?  Lack of political will and combined with a typical willingness to spend money we didn’t have.

As an environmental lawyer, I found the article interesting, because a discussion of the origin of the Big Dig transit commitments – a story I know pretty well – for the first time turned on a light bulb for me. … More

More Than Five Years Later, the Bush Administration Is Still Losing Environmental Cases

I previously noted that the record of the Bush administration in defending its rulemaking decisions was dangerously near the Mendoza Line.  Indeed, even four years after Bush left office, it was continuing to lose decisions.  Now, we can say that the record has extended to five years.  Last week, in National Parks Conservation Association v. Jewell, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the 2008 rule issued by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement,… More

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise: An Agency Cannot Revise Regulations In a Consent Decree

In a decision that should not have come as a surprise to anyone, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday, in Conservation Northwest v. Sherman, that the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies implementing the Northwest Forest Plan could not amend the NFP without complying with the procedural requirements of the Federal Land Policy Management Act.  The rationale of the decision should apply far more broadly than just the FLPMA,… More