Here is a Summary of the March 4, 2025 Supreme Court opinion in the case called City and County of San Francisco vs EPA, case number 23 753.

The question presented in this case is whether the Clean Water act allows EPA or an authorized state to impose generic prohibitions in National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System NPDIS permits that subject permit holders to enforcement for exceedances of water quality standards without identifying specific limits to which their discharges must conform.

Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh joined.

Justice Gorsuch joined as to all but part two.

Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson joined as to Part 2.

Justice Barrett filed an opinion dissenting in part, in which Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson joined.

Please note that this summary is read by an automated voice.

Justice Alito's majority opinion under the Clean Water Act.

CWA 33 USC Section 1151 Etc.

The Environmental Protection Agency and authorized state agencies issue permits that impose requirements on entities that wish to discharge pollutants into the waters of the United States.

A critical component of the CWA regulatory scheme is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, which makes it unlawful to discharge pollutants into covered bodies of water unless authorized by permit.

EPAV California XREL State Water Resources Control Board, 426 U.S.

200, 205.

These permits typically include effluent limitations on discharges that restrict the quantities, rates, and concentrations of chemical, physical, biological, and other constituents.

Section1362 11 failure to comply with permit limitations exposes permittees to civil penalties and even criminal prosecution.

Sections 1319 and under what is known as the permit shield provision, however, an entity that adheres to the terms of its permit is deemed to be compliant with the actual section 1342K.

This case involves a challenge to end result requirements permit provisions that do not spell out what a permittee must do or refrain from doing, but instead make a permittee responsible for the quality of the water in the body of water into which the permittee discharges pollutants.

The City of San Francisco operates two combined wastewater treatment facilities that process both wastewater and stormwater.

Combined Sewer Overflow control policy during periods of heavy precipitation, the combination of wastewater and stormwater may exceed the facility's capacity and the result may be the discharge of untreated water, including raw sewage, into the Pacific Ocean or the San Francisco Bay.

In 1994, the EPA adopted its CSO control policy, which requires municipalities with combined systems to take prescribed measures and and to develop and implement a long term control plan and provides for a two phase permitting process.

For many years, San Francisco's NPDES permit for its oceanside facility was renewed without controversy, but in 2019, the EPA issued a renewal permit that added two end result requirements.

The first of these prohibits the facility from making any discharge that contributes to a violation of any applicable water quality standard for receiving waters at 1085.

The second provides that the city cannot perform any treatment or make any discharge that creates pollution, contamination, or nuisance as defined by California water code section13050EBIT.

Internal quotation marks omitted San Francisco argued that the end result requirements exceed EPA's statutory authority, but the Ninth Circuit denied the city's petition for review.

The court held that section 1311 authorizes EPA to impose any limitations ensuring applicable water quality standards are satisfied in a receiving body of water.

Held section 1311 does not authorize the EPA to include end result provisions in NPDES permits.

Determining what steps a permittee must take to ensure that water quality standards are Met is the EPA's responsibility, and Congress has given it the tools needed to make that determination.

Pages 7 to 19A.

Not all limitations under section 1311 must qualify as effluent limitations.

While sections 1311B, 11A, and B refer to effluent limitations, section 1311B, 11C refers to any more stringent limitation.

This distinction shows that Congress intentionally authorized limitations beyond effluent limitations because it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion of language in a statute.

Rosello vs United States, 464 US 1623 internal quotation marks omitted.

Other CWA provisions support this by referring to effluent limitations and other limitations under Section 1311 CEG Sections 1341d, 1365f.

Moreover, San Francisco's interpretation would either invalidate widely accepted narrative permit provisions or require an improbably broad reading of effluent limitation.

Pages 7 to 9B.

Section 1311 does not authorize permit requirements conditioning compliance on receiving water quality.

The provisions, text, structure, and context support this interpretation.

Pages 9 to 19 1.

The terms limitation, implement, and meet in section 1311 suggest EPA must set specific rules permittees must follow to achieve water quality goals.

A limitation is a restriction imposed from without, not an end result requirement, leaving permittees to determine necessary steps.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1312 When a provision tells a permittee that a particular end result must be achieved, the direct source of the restriction comes from within, not from, without.

To implement standards requires concrete measures not simply mandating achievement of results.

Id.

At 1134, section 1311.

A limitation that is necessary to meet an objective is most naturally understood to mean a provision that sets out actions that must be taken to achieve the objective.

Pages 10 to 12 the pre1972 Water Pollution Control Act WPCA contained a provision that allowed direct and enforcement against a polluter if the quality of the water into which the polluter discharges pollutants failed to meet water quality standards.

See Federal Water Pollution control Act, Chapter 7, 58 Sections 1.2d.

1.2d.

4, 2d 7, 62 Stat.

1155, 1156-1157.

But Congress deliberately omitted such provisions when overhauling the law in 1972.

Instead, the CWA imposes direct restrictions on polluters rather than working backward from pollution to assign responsibility.

EPA, 426 U.S.

at 204.

The government's interpretation would undo what Congress plainly sought to achieve when it scrapped the WPCA's backward looking approach.

Pages 12 to 1432 features of the broader statutory scheme further support this conclusion.

First, end result requirements would negate the CWA's permit shield protecting compliant permittees from liability.

Second, EPA's interpretation provides no mechanism for fairly allocating responsibility among multiple dischargers contributing to water quality violations.

Pages 14 to 16 the agency has adequate tools to obtain needed information from permittees without resorting to end result requirements.

Its reliance on the combined sewer overflow policy is misplaced, as that policy authorizes narrative limitations but not end result requirements, and concerns about disrupting general permits are unfounded given that narrative limitations remain available.

Pages 17 to 1975 F.4-1074 reversed and.

Remanded Justice Barrett, Opinion Dissenting in Part I join Part two of its opinion, which rightly rejects the City's primary argument.

In Part three.

However, the Court embraces an equally weak theory that the permit's restrictions are not limitations, as that word is ordinarily used.

The Court's analysis is contrary to the text, so I respectfully dissent in part.

The Court's interpretation of the term limitation in section 1311 contradicts ordinary English usage.

A limitation can encompass conditions stated at varying levels of generality, including end result requirements.

Just as a college may condition a scholarship on maintaining a minimum gpa or a homeowner may condition payment on satisfaction of industry standards, EPA may condition permit authorization on compliance with water quality standards.

The phrases necessary to meet and required to implement in section 1311 do not imply specific measures.

Rather, they indicate the limitations must ensure compliance with water quality standards.

The receiving water limitations implement the standards both by carrying out their objectives and by giving them practical effect through enforceability.

The Court's historical analysis claiming that receiving water limitations would revive the pre1972 backward looking enforcement regime is flawed.

The Clean Water Act's shift from the prior regime involved two key ones making all discharges presumptively unlawful unless authorized by permit and two replacing ineffective ex post enforcement with prospective permit requirements.

Receiving water limitations fit seamlessly within this new framework as prospective conditions supplementing technology based limits.

The Court's concerns about fairness to permittees with multiple dischargers or unclear compliance standards are better addressed through arbitrary and capricious challenges to specific permit conditions rather than categorical prohibition.

Removing this tool from EPA may delay or prevent permit issuance, since section 1311 mandates limitations necessary to meet water quality standards.

Case Implications the court's rejection of EPA's authority to include end result water quality limitations in NPDES permits may significantly reshape how the Agency regulates water pollution, particularly for combined sewer systems and general permits.

EPA might need to develop more specific prescriptive permit conditions for each discharge scenario, potentially leading to longer permit processing times and increased administrative burden.

This could particularly affect municipalities operating combined sewer systems, who may face delays in permit renewals while EPA develops detailed technical requirements, as well as smaller businesses that previously relied on general permits with flexible compliance approaches.

The ruling might also prompt EPA to more frequently deny permits when it lacks sufficient information to develop specific limitations, potentially forcing some operators to cease discharges until they can provide more detailed technical data about their operations.

While the Court suggests EPA has adequate tools to protect water quality through specific limitations, the practical challenge of developing tailored requirements for numerous diverse discharge scenarios could strain agency resources and potentially result in a more cumbersome permitting process that may inadvertently reduce environmental protection in some instances.