On July 14, 2017, three environmental groups (Environmental
Integrity Project, Sierra Club, and Earth Justice) petitioned the
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for a full review of its May
decision that the EPA properly withheld testing data in response to
a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") request. The
petition for rehearing en banc asks that the full Court of Appeals
for the D.C. Circuit reconsider the environmental groups'
arguments as opposed to the three judge panel that originally heard
the case.
The underlying issue concerns the EPA's Clean Water Act rule
establishing new Effluent Limitation Guidelines for steam electric
power plants proposed in 2013. Shortly after the Clean Water
Act rule was proposed, the environmental groups requested technical
information from the EPA that the EPA relied on to develop the
proposed rule. While the EPA provided some technical
information, it also partially denied the environmental groups'
request on the grounds
