Natural Resources Defense Council v. Southwest Marine, Inc.

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING MOTION TO PRECLUDE CIVIL PENALTIES

I. Introduction

The question before this Court is whether Plaintiffs, two environmental organizations and a private individual, have standing to seek civil monetary penalties against Defendant, a private shipyard, under the Clean Water Act. Two recent cases suggest that plaintiffs in citizen suits do not have standing to seek civil penalties against alleged violators of environmental statutes. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83 , 118 S.Ct. 1003 , 140 L.Ed.2d 210 (1998), and Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (“Laidlaw”), 149 F.3d 303 (4th Cir.1998). This motion raises a difficult question with potentially significant implications for the viability of citizen suits and their practical effectiveness on altering the behavior of alleged violators of the Clean Water Act. Both cases — Steel Co. and Laidlaw — involved suits for wholly past violations of an environmental statute.' In contrast, the instant matter involves allegations of both past and present violations of the Clean Water Act. As such, both Steel Co. and Laidlaw are distinguishable from the instant case. No…