{"id":30838,"date":"2024-07-17T10:11:59","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T15:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=30838"},"modified":"2024-07-17T10:11:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T15:11:59","slug":"when-it-comes-to-pollution-how-much-is-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2024\/07\/when-it-comes-to-pollution-how-much-is-too-much\/","title":{"rendered":"When it Comes to Pollution, How Much is Too Much?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The late Justice Crooks once wrote for a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that \u201cgeneral standards are common in environmental statues . . . [and] the fact that [they] are broad standards does not make them non-existent ones.\u201d That principle is about to be tested in both the United States Supreme Court and the Wisconsin Supreme Court. General standards (or, as their opponents often call them, vague standards) may be \u201ccommon in environmental statutes,\u201d but they are also becoming extremely controversial, as demonstrated in a pair of current cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is a federal matter, City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency<\/em>, in which the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on May 28. The case concerns regulatory agencies\u2019 authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to issue \u201cnarrative\u201d standards, or statements that describe a water quality goal when numeric standards are too difficult to quantify. The permit provision at issue prohibits a wastewater treatment facility from \u201ccausing or contributing to\u201d a violation of water quality standards, and from discharging substances that \u201ccreate pollution, contamination, or nuisance.\u201d The appellant municipalities say those standards are too vague, because they create no specific numerical requirements that provide a yardstick as to when the water has been sufficiently treated to avoid running afoul of the CWA\u2014no way to know \u201chow much is too much\u201d pollution. In other words, the argument is that the municipalities cannot design treatment technologies without more definite standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last term in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency<\/em>, the Court struck down EPA\u2019s broad interpretation of the term \u201cwaters of the United States\u201d in the CWA, sharply curtailing the agency\u2019s authority to regulate discharges into wetlands. And in the meantime, the court overruled its longstanding principle of deferring to agencies\u2019 legal interpretations of statutory terms, known as Chevron <\/em>deference. Together, those decisions may not bode well for EPA\u2019s position in the San Francisco<\/em> case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wisconsin Supreme Court\u2019s endorsement of \u201cgeneral\u201d standards described at the beginning of this post came in response to a challenge of the Department of Natural Resources\u2019 general authority under the Wisconsin statutes and the public trust doctrine to \u201cprotect, maintain and improve\u201d the waters of the state. In the case, Lake Beulah Management District v. DNR<\/em>, the court held that the DNR could rely on general legislative grants of authority such as that to place conditions on permits issued for the operation of high-capacity wells. The court reached a similar conclusion a decade later in 2021, in two decisions relating to DNR\u2019s authority to regulate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and high-capacity wells, both captioned Clean Wisconsin v. DNR<\/em>. In the Clean Wisconsin<\/em> cases, the court held that agency authority that is stated in broad terms nevertheless qualifies as actionable, \u201cexplicit\u201d authority within the meaning of Wis. Stat. \u00a7 227.10(2m), which prohibits the agency from implementing or enforcing a permit condition not \u201cexplicitly required or explicitly permitted\u201d by statute or by rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That position will be tested again should the court accept the pending petition for review in Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, Inc. and Leather Rich, Inc. v. DNR<\/em>. The case concerns Wisconsin\u2019s \u201cSpills Law,\u201d Wis. Stat. \u00a7 292.11. The Spills Law requires a person who causes the discharge of a \u201chazardous substance,\u201d or who possesses or controls a hazardous substance that has been discharged, to notify DNR of the spill and then to \u201ctake the actions necessary to restore the environment.\u201d There is no list of \u201chazardous substances\u201d \u2013 instead, the statute broadly defines the term to include almost any substance \u201cwhich may pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment . . . .\u201d In practice, DNR has enjoyed substantial flexibility in determining what qualifies as a \u201chazardous substance.\u201d The dispute in Leather Rich <\/em>arose over DNR\u2019s amendment of an ongoing remediation plan to include emerging contaminants such as PFAS, the \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d within the definition of \u201chazardous substances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court of appeals affirmed the circuit court for Waukesha County\u2019s order finding that the DNR \u201cha[s] the responsibility to determine . . . what the hazardous substances are by statute,\u201d which \u201cmean[s] that there has to be a rule-making function by the department . . . so that the individuals have notice as to what the law is and how the law is going to be implemented.\u201d The court of appeals also affirmed the circuit court\u2019s conclusion that DNR\u2019s enforcement of the Spills Law with respect to PFAS without making a list of \u201chazardous substances\u201d was \u201can unlawfully adopted rule and is invalid and unenforceable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its Petition for Review, the Wisconsin Department of Justice argued that the decision \u201cimplies that agencies cannot enforce open-ended statutes without [promulgating] rules explaining their view of what exactly the statutes cover.\u201d This effectively ignores the Clean Wisconsin<\/em> cases, the state argued, and could end any Spills Law enforcement whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both cases\u2014San Francisco<\/em> at the federal level and Leather Rich <\/em>at the state level\u2014will require courts of last resort to analyze broad provisions in environmental protection statutes to delineate an agency\u2019s implementation and enfacement authority. For both the regulated community and the environment, the stakes could hardly be higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late Justice Crooks once wrote for a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that \u201cgeneral standards are common in environmental statues . . . [and] the fact that [they] are broad standards does not make them non-existent ones.\u201d That principle is about to be tested in both the United States Supreme Court and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,122,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-law","category-public","category-water-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30840,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30838\/revisions\/30840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}