United States Ninth Circuit

In a citizen suit under the Clean Water Act brought by environmental advocates alleging that the EPA failed to fulfill its mandate to review effluent guidelines and limitations in a timely manner and in accord with technology-based standards, a judgment for the EPA is affirmed where the decisions whether to revise the effluent guidelines and whether to incorporate technology-based criteria in its periodic review of the guidelines fell within the EPA's discretion. (Substituted opinion)

Appellate Information

• Argued 02/13/2007
• Decided 05/23/2008
• Published 05/23/2008

Judges

• Before:  J. CLIFFORD WALLACE, D.W. NELSON, and M. MARGARET McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Christopher Sproul, Environmental Advocates, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants., Melanie Shepherdson, National Resources Defense Counsel, Washington, DC, amicus in support of the appellants., Jeffrey Odefey, Waterkeeper Alliance, Tarrytown, NY, amicus in support of the appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Allen M. Brabender (argued), Sue Ellen Wooldridge, Assistant Attorney General, John A. Bryson and Eileen T. McDonough, Attorneys, United States Dept. of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Div., Washington, DC;  Carol Ann Siciliano and Pooja Seth Parikh, Office of General Counsel, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, for the defendants-appellees., Fredric P. Andes, Carolyn S. Hesse, and David T. Ballard, Barnes & Thornburg, L.L.P., Chicago, IL, for intervenor-appellee Effluent Guidelines Industry Coalition., David W. Burchmore and Jill A. Grinham, Squire, Sanders, & Dempsey L.L.P., Cleveland, OH, for intervenors-appellees Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, now known as National Association of Clean Water Agencies.