Natural Resources Defense Council v. Pruitt

After the parties filed a stipulation of voluntary dismissal, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) stay of performance standards and emission guidelines for municipal solid waste landfills. The stay was in place from May 31, 2017 to August 29, 2017, while EPA began a reconsideration process. On January 11, 2018, EPA withdrew plans for a further delay in implementation of the standards. In the stipulation of voluntary dismissal, the petitioners stated that they had decided to voluntarily dismiss the petition for review on the basis of EPA’s representations in its initial brief that the stay only affected deadlines that would have applied during the 90 days the stay was in effect, that EPA was not aware of new landfills affected by the stay, and that the stay did not affect deadlines for existing landfills or for EPA obligations.

The D.C. Circuit denied a motion for summary vacatur of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) administrative stay of regulations restricting emissions of landfill gas (including methane) from municipal solid waste landfills. The D.C. Circuit asked the parties to address in their briefs whether the case was moot because the administrative stay being challenged expired on August 29, 2017.

Environmental groups asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA’s) administrative stay of regulations restricting emissions of landfill gas (including methane) from municipal solid waste landfills. The plaintiffs called their case “a carbon copy” of Clean Air Council v. Pruitt, in which the D.C. Circuit vacated EPA’s administrative stay of regulations restricting emissions from the oil and gas sector. They argued that EPA’s administrative stay suffered from the same flaws as the administrative stay in that case, citing EPA’s failure to articulate any rationale for why reconsideration was mandatory for five of the six issues on which reconsideration was granted and the failure of the rationale for reconsideration of the sixth issue to meet statutory criteria for mandatory reconsideration.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Clean Air Council, and Clean Wisconsin filed a petition seeking review of EPA’s administrative stay of performance standards and emission guidelines for municipal solid waste landfills. The standards and guidelines were published on August 29, 2016. In a letter dated May 5, 2017, EPA announced the commencement of a reconsideration proceeding for six elements of the regulations. EPA published notice of the administrative stay on May 31, 2017, stating that it was necessary to stay the regulations in their entirety because provisions that were a subject of the reconsideration proceeding were integral to how the rules functioned as a whole.