The Availability of State Environmental Citizen Suits (original) (raw)

This article examines the prevalence and limitations of state environmental citizen enforcement provisions in the context of compliance with environmental requirements. It observes that of the four legs of environmental enforcement-- federal, state, federal citizen suits, and state citizen suits--the latter are the most underutilized. Nonetheless, owing to declines in federal and state governmental enforcement efforts, coupled with increasing statutory, constitutional, and practical challenges facing federal citizen suit litigation, the time may be ripe for the ascendancy of state environmental citizen suits. Citizen suits to enforce state laws are part of a four-legged table designed to ensure compliance with federal and state environmental laws. The first leg is federal enforcement by EPA. To compel compliance with federal environmental laws, EPA has three choices to address noncompliance. First, it can bring administrative actions--that is, seek compliance short of filing a federal lawsuit. This usually means sending a notice of violation, and that failing, issuing an administrative order seeking compliance and/or the payment of an administrative penalty.