Counsel Amanda Waters will be speaking at the Foundation For Natural Resources and Energy Law on the topic of “Clean Water Act Update."
In County of Maui v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund the Supreme Court in 2020 ruled for the first time that a discharge to navigable waters via groundwater requires a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit if it is the “functional equivalent” of a direct discharge. Our speaker will review how courts have applied the Maui analytical framework since, and what these rulings suggest about future litigation and regulation. This session will also explore the tensions in federalism evident in, on the one hand, EPA’s Section 401 rulemaking initiated in June of 2022 to reverse Trump-era rules on water quality certification by states and tribes, and on the other, pending attempts by the judicial and executive branches to once again clarify the scope of the Clean Water Act by defining “waters of the United States.”
For more information about the event, please visit fnrel.org.