In a 19-page decision, Judge Reggie Walton granted partial summary judgment to the National Mining Association, which claimed that the EPA overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act to block the dumping of debris from mountaintop removal projects into local waterways. The decision dismantles an administrative scheme the EPA promulgated in 2009 that gave it more say in the granting of permits for mountaintop mining projects. The EPA used its new rules to impose a “de facto moratorium on permitting for coal mining,” Crowell & Moring argued in the mining group’s July 2010 complaint for declaratory judgment and injunctive relief.
The judge adopted the mining industry’s argument that the EPA unlawfully substituted its judgment for that of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the public works agency responsible for water projects. In passing the Clean Water Act, “Congress established a permitting scheme in which the Corps is to be the principle player, and the EPA is to play a lesser, clearly defined supporting role,” Walton ruled.
