Supreme Court Rules Against EPA in Permitting Case Supported by NAHB

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday handed down a decision in San Francisco v. EPA, a case concerning the Environmental Protection Agency’s duties to provide a path to compliance for certain clean water permits. NAHB filed an amicus brief in the case.

The case concerned “water quality standards” related to federal wastewater permits and how EPA must describe a permittee’s duties to meet those standards. In San Francisco’s permits, EPA said that the city had to meet the receiving waters’ — in this case, the Pacific Ocean — “water quality standard” without telling the city how that should be accomplished. San Francisco claimed this condition violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Supreme Court agreed. 

NAHB filed an amicus brief in the case over the concern that if the court agreed with San Francisco’s argument, it could go too far and require EPA to include numeric discharge limits in CWA permits.

A large portion of NAHB members must comply with “construction general permits” (CGPs) due to their earthwork on site. CGPs contain “narrative” permit conditions, often referred to as “best management practices.” NAHB’s brief explained how narrative permit conditions comply with the CWA and cautioned the court not to eradicate them.

In deciding the case, the court focused on the words of the CWA that direct EPA to create limitations in permits to “meet” or “implement” water quality standards. It provided that simply telling permittees to comply with water quality standards does not explain how to “meet” or “implement” them. As a result, the court ruled in favor of San Francisco.

Moreover, the court went out of its way to ensure that the narrative requirements were not at issue in this case and that such requirements are allowed by the CWA. In fact, the court cited NAHB’s brief twice to make these points.