Jessica Farmer is an Associate in the
Washington D.C. office.
A panel of the D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's Summit
Directive--a directive which, in response to an unfavorable
decision, imposed different regulatory requirements in one region
of the country than those in force elsewhere. The Court found
that the directive violated EPA's regional consistency
regulations.
EPA's regulations, in connection with the requirements of
the Clean Air Act, state that multiple pollutant-emitting
activities are considered to be a single stationary source if they
are "adjacent." In applying these regulations, EPA has
stated that determinations as to whether two or more facilities are
"adjacent" should be based on the functional
interrelationships of the facilities, not just the physical
distance. This functional interrelationship theory was
challenged, and in August of 2012, in Summit Petroleum Corp. v.
EPA, the Sixth Circuit held that EPA's broad definition of
the term
