Karuk Tribe of Northern California v. California Regional Water Quality Control Bd., North Coast Region

These three appeals are the result of a rather unusual combination of administrative and judicial proceedings to determine whether state law regulating water quality can be applied to dams licensed by an agency of the federal government. A number of private parties asked the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, North Coast Region (Board), to enforce California’s law governing waste discharge to several hydroelectric dam-reservoirs on the Klamath River. The Board—having twice attempted to assert state law on this very subject and having twice been decisively and unanimously rejected by the United States Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—declined, on the ground that all power on the subject belonged to the federal government by virtue of the Federal Power Act (FPA; 16 U.S.C. § 791a et seq.). The trial court ultimately agreed with this view, refusing to issue a writ of mandate compelling the Board to enforce the state’s law.

But before reaching that determination, and on its own initiative, the trial court sent the matter back to the Board so that it could reconsider its initial refusal in light of two decisions by the United States Supreme…