In June, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sued the EPA on behalf of a group of farmers, ranchers, and green groups “for failing to perform its nondiscretionary duty to identify and regulate toxic pollutants in sewage sludge” used as fertilizer. In September, the EPA moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it has complete discretion regarding the identification and listing of pollutants.
“EPA seems to have lost any sense of its legal and moral obligation to protect public health,” attorney and former EPA scientist Kyla Bennett said at the time. “Under the plain language of the Clean Water Act, EPA has a mandatory duty to identify and regulate substances that are a threat to human health and the environment—not just to issue a report about it.”