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ARTICLE · 05 MAY 2022

Sometimes The Law Really Is Unambiguous — Clean Water Act Edition

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Last week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a person who enters into an administrative settlement with a state is immune from citizen suits seeking civil penalties...

United StatesEnvironment
Seth Jaffe
Seth Jaffe
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Last week, the  First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a person who enters into an administrative settlement with a state is immune from citizen suits seeking civil penalties, but not immune from suits for declaratory or injunctive relief.  I don't think that the decision would even have been newsworthy, if it hadn't required that the Court overrule its 1991 decision in North and South Rivers Watershed Ass'n v. Scituate.

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Water flowing into Blackstone Gorge just downstream from dam at Blackstone River & Canal Heritage State Park

The real question is what the panel in Scituate was thinking, because, in world where we're all used to criticizing Congress's incomprehensible drafting, the statutory language at issue here might be the least ambiguous in the entire environmental canon.  Here's the relevant language, as selected, and with the emphasis supplied, by the Court:

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