United States Ninth Circuit

In a challenge under section 304 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) brought by a coalition of community organizations against California state officials responsible for designing and implementing a state air quality plan, challenging the process by which EPA approval of the plan was obtained and the final outcome of the approval process, summary judgment for plaintiff and a remedies order are reversed and vacated where, because section 304 of the CAA provides jurisdiction only to enforce an "emission standard or limitation," and because the challenged conduct did not implicate such a standard or limitation, the court was without jurisdiction to order a remedy.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/12/2008
• Decided 08/20/2008
• Published 08/20/2008

Judges

• Before:  DIARMUID F. O'SCANNLAIN, HAWKINS, and M. MARGARET McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Jan L. Kahn and Rissa A. Stuart, Hanford, CA, for appellant-intervenors.


• For Appellees:
  
• Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General of the State of California, James Humes, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Tom Greene, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Mary E. Hackenbracht, Senior Assistant Attorney General, John Davidson, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Michael W. Neville, Deputy Attorney General of California, San Francisco, CA, for the defendants-appellants., Brent Newell and Luke W. Cole, Center for Race, Poverty & the Environment, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellees.