Sheila Woolson, a Member of the Firm in the Labor and Employment and Litigation practices, in the Newark office, wrote an article titled "Next Stop: The Courthouse Challenging Compliance Orders Under the Clean Water Act."
Following is an excerpt:
Challenging compliance orders issued by the Environmental Protection Agency pursuant to the Clean Water Act has in the past presented property owners with only two options, both of which were potentially expensive and fraught with risk. The recipient of the compliance order could either chose to comply with the order even though the recipient believed the order was ultra vires or the recipient could refuse to comply and risk incurring penalties while waiting for the EPA to bring an enforcement action. The one thing the recipient could not do, however, was institute a civil action to challenge the order or even the EPA's authority to issue it.
Reprinted with permission from Thomson Reuters.
