Posted on 08/28/2015 10:11:51 AM PDT by yoe
A federal judge in North Dakota acted late on Thursday to block the Obama administration’s controversial water pollution rule, hours before it was due to take effect.
Judge Ralph Erickson of the District Court for the District of North Dakota found that the 13 states suing to block the rule met the conditions necessary for a preliminary injunction, including that they would likely be harmed if courts didn't act and that they are likely to succeed when their underlying lawsuit against the rule is decided.
The decision is a major roadblock for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers, who were planning on Friday to begin enforcing the Waters of the United States rule, expanding federal jurisdiction over small waterways, like streams and wetlands.
But the Obama administration says it will largely enforce the regulation as planned, arguing that the Thursday decision only applies to the 13 states that requested the injunction.
“Once the rule takes effect, the states will lose their sovereignty over intrastate waters that will then be subject to the scope of the Clean Water Act,” Erickson wrote in his order.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
EPA needs to be divided into fifty and handed off to the states.
The relationship between Corps of Engineers and the states needs to be modified; the Corps should be hired to build and maybe operate a waterway but ownership and final authority resides again with the state where it is located. If there are several states involved, they can set up their own Authority which would oversee it, and would in turn hire (or not hire) the Corps to build and operate. Nothing would stop them from hiring a civilian company to do the same job.
Department of Interior needs to be divided up and handed off to the states, likewise. If the states want to continue to employ the people who were previously responsible for lands within that state, that would be up to them. The federal government should not own vast swaths of land, they have no reason to own anything other than military bases and office complexes.
Could we get this judge to look at some more stuff?
I am wondering if Pennsylvania was not part of this particular lawsuit because of the PIECE OF GARBAGE Attorney General here.
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