Dive Brief:
- Entergy Corp. and the Utility Water Act Group (UWAG) have petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to reconsider the EPA's final cooling water intake rule.
- The final rule, which went into effect last month, is aimed at limiting the approximately 2 billion fish and shellfish killed in power plant water intake systems every year.
- The American Petroleum Institute has filed a petition of its own in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit while environmental groups have filed in the First, Second and Ninth circuits.
Dive Insight:
It isn't yet clear what reason Entergy Corp. and UWAG are giving in their request for reconsideration of the rule. Their filing is largely a copy of the final rule and jurisdictional reasoning.
But lawsuits surrounding EPA's intake rule can hardly come as a surprise — the rule establishes requirements under the Clean Water Act for existing power, manufacturing and industrial facilities that use more than 2 million gallons a day and use at least a quarter of that exclusively for cooling purposes.
EPA estimated in May that meant the intake rule would impact 1,065 existing facilities — 521 factories and 544 power plants.
UWAG has filed comments previously, citing the proposed rule's “unduly burdensome requirements." The group describes itself as a group of 191 energy companies and three national trade groups: Edison Electric Institute, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and the American Public Power Association.
