Fourteen AGs Filed Amicus Brief in Support of States’ Clean Water Act Permitting Authority

MARCH 19, 2019

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum led a coalition of 14 state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of rehearing of a federal court decision that restricts the exercise of state water quality objections under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act in the context of federal permitting of infrastructure projects. In the brief, the attorneys general warn that the January 2019 ruling in Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC threatens state authority over water quality permitting and “undercuts the coequal management of the nation’s waters.”