American Farm Bureau Federation v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
792 F.3d 281 (2015)
The EPA (defendant) set a Chesapeake Bay total maximum daily load (TMDL) for nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment that specifically allocated permissible discharge levels among point and nonpoint pollution sources across different sectors; agricultural groups (plaintiffs) sued, arguing the Clean Water Act only authorized a single aggregate TMDL number, not source-specific allocations, and that the EPA's approach improperly intruded on states' traditional land-use authority over nonpoint sources.
Whether the EPA's specific allocation of the pollution load among point sources and nonpoint sources in its total daily maximum loads is a reasonable interpretation of the Clean Water Act.