The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently (May 27, 2016) reversed a federal district court in a citizen’s suit that sough hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties under the federal Clean Air Act for alleged thousand of violations. In the case Environment Texas Citizen Lobby, Inc. v. ExxonMobil Corp., the district court had ruled that only 94 of the allegations were actually violations, and that no penalty was in order. In reversing this decision, the Fifth Circuit may have opened the door to civil penalties for all of the statements in Title V Deviation Reports that indicate a violation of the Title V permit or regulations have occurred. This raises significant issues as companies are required to make deviation reports every year, and in most, cases, it is difficult to avoid any deviations in such reports.
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