In a significant decision for companies operating under an EPA consent decree or similar federally supervised remediation obligation, the Eleventh Circuit reversed remand of a state-law environmental tort case in City of Brunswick v. Honeywell International, Inc., No. 23-13200 (Aug. 3, 2026). City of Brunswick clarifies that companies performing CERCLA cleanup under EPA direction may qualify for federal-officer jurisdiction, even when the complaint brings only state-law claims.
Georgia Power and Honeywell International previously operated industrial facilities on a site near Brunswick, Georgia, that released various hazardous substances into the surrounding area. After the companies and the EPA entered into an administrative consent order under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the EPA designated the site as a Superfund site, issued a record of decision selecting a remedial plan, and entered into a consent decree with the companies to implement that plan. The EPA retained extensive oversight authority, including the power to take over remediation entirely if the companies underperformed.
The City of Brunswick sued Georgia Power and Honeywell in state court for continuing nuisance and trespass under Georgia law. The City claimed the defendants had failed to adequately remediate the contamination, which continued to migrate onto City property.
The defendants removed the case to federal court based on (among other things) federal-officer removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). The district court granted the City’s motion to remand, and the defendants appealed. While the appeal was pending, the state court lifted a previous stay, the City filed amended complaints, and the litigation proceeded. The City moved to dismiss the appeal as moot or waived on that basis.
Reversing the district court’s remand order, the Eleventh Circuit’s decision addressed two principal questions: (1) Did the court retain jurisdiction to review the remand order despite the subsequent state-court proceedings and amended complaints; and (2) did the defendants properly remove under § 1442(a)(1)? Both were answered in the affirmative.
Jurisdiction and the Automatic Stay
The Eleventh Circuit held that the federal court retained jurisdiction, because the state-court proceedings were void ab initio. This is because the notice of appeal automatically stayed the district court’s remand order (and therefore any proceedings on remand) under the Griggs rule as applied in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 599 U.S. 736 (2023).
Under Griggs, a notice of appeal “divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal.” Applying this principle, Coinbase held that an appeal from denial of a motion to compel arbitration automatically stays district court proceedings, even though the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) does not provide for such a stay.
The Eleventh Circuit reasoned that the same logic applies to appeals of remand orders in federal-officer removal case, for three reasons. First, as in the FAA, the statute providing for appellate review of remand orders in federal-officer removal cases, 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), contains no express language that would override the default rule. Second, similar to how an appeal from the denial of a motion to compel arbitration decides whether a case belongs in arbitration or in federal court, and appeal of a remand order decides whether a case proceeds in state court or federal court. That is, in both settings, “the entire case is essentially ‘involved in the appeal.’” Finally, the automatic stay preserves meaningful appellate review. Without a stay, a plaintiff could moot the appeal by amending pleadings in state court and argued waiver, as the City attempted here.
Deepening a circuit split, the court joined with the Fourth Circuit in holding that the automatic stay applies, while the Ninth Circuit has limited Coinbase to the arbitration context, holding that a stay is only discretionary.
Federal-Officer Removal
Turning to the merits of the remand order, the court held that all three requirements were met for federal-officer removal: (1) the defendants were “acting under” the EPA by performing a governmental cleanup task the EPA would otherwise have to do itself; (2) the City’s claims “relate to” that federally directed conduct; and (3) the defendants asserted a colorable federal defense (conflict preemption).
As in most federal-officer removal disputes, the analysis focused on the “acting under” requirement. In Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., 551 U.S. 142 (2007), the Supreme Court held that it is not enough that a private party is subject to even extensive government regulation. Instead, the private entity must be performing a task that the federal government itself would otherwise have to carry out, essentially acting as the government’s designee or agent.
Here, the defendants were doing just that. CERCLA charges the EPA with cleaning up Superfund sites, either by doing the work itself or by compelling responsible parties to do it. The consent decree therefore was not merely a regulatory requirement but rather the EPA’s delegation of a task it otherwise would have to perform. Among other things, the defendants could not take remedial action without EPA authorization, the EPA appointed the project coordinator overseeing day-to-day work, the EPA retained authority to stop would and to take over remediation, and the consent decree required defendants to implement the EPA’s specific remedial plan selected in its record of decision.
In concluding that the City’s claims related to the EPA-directed conduct (meeting the second requirement), the court took the opportunity to apply the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish, 146 S. Ct. 1052 (2026), which held that an amendment to § 1442 adding the language “or relating to” removed any strict causation requirement. Plaquemines Parish therefore counsels retiring the older “causal” terminology used in prior Eleventh Circuit cases, although the substantive standard of “closely connected” is unchanged.
Finally, the court concluded that the defendants’ conflict-preemption defense was at least plausible. The Supreme Court in Atlantic Richfield had expressly reserved the question whether an EPA-approved cleanup plan can preempt state-law remedies, as the defendant’s argued.