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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday that limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate bodies of water, calling it a "MAGA" court even though the decision was 9-0. On Thursday, the high court issued an opinion that narrowed the EPA's broad definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The court said the federal government must define WOTUS as a water source with a "continuous surface connection" to major bodies of water. The decision upended an attempt by the Biden administration to regulate wetlands, lakes, ponds, streams and other "relatively permanent" waterways, which...

The U.S. Supreme Court in a 5–4 decision reined in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) effort to impose extensive federal land use regulation through its broad interpretation of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The decision in the case of Sackett v. EPA turns on the question of the proper definition of the term "the waters of the United States" (WOTUS). Interestingly, all the justices concurred in the judgment that plaintiffs Michael and Chantell Sackett's property and actions were not covered by the CWA. In the case, the Sacketts had purchased property near Priest Lake, Idaho, and began backfilling the lot...

North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday that blocked the implementation of the Biden administration's clean water rule, also known as WOTUS. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers published the rule on Jan. 18 that brings the country's wetlands, streams and other waterways under federal jurisdiction. The rule was implemented during the Obama administration and repealed under the Trump administration. Twenty-three states and several organizations joined North Dakota in the lawsuit filed on Feb. 21. Hovland said in his order that the EPA exceeded its statutory authority and could be...

President Joe Biden on Thursday issued his second veto since taking office, halting a bipartisan resolution that would have reversed waterway regulations enacted by his administration last month. The Biden Amdinistration’s regulations issue protections for “hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands, and other waterways,” walking back deregulations implemented during the Trump Administration, as the Associated Press noted. Republicans and some Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), have argued the new regulations are an executive branch overreach. After vetoing the resolution, Biden said his administration’s regulation “provides clear rules of the road that will help advance infrastructure projects, economic investments,...

President Joe Biden vetoed a bipartisan bill Thursday that would limit his administration’s broad interpretation of the “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule that grants the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) significant new authority. The president rejected the bill, arguing that his administration’s new rule provides “clear rules of the road” to protect both economic efforts and water quality under the Clean Water Act, according to the veto. The rule dramatically expands the traditional limits of WOTUS — which allow the EPA to regulate navigable waters — to include all territorial seas, interstate waters, adjacent wetlands, traditional waters’ tributaries and...

'This is an important victory protecting the people of Texas from destructive federal overreach,' Texas attorney general says A federal judge blocked the Biden administration from implementing environmental regulations redefining how water sources are protected, but which opponents have argued were an example of overreach. In his decision published late Sunday, Judge Jeffrey Brown ruled that the so-called Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in late December "poses irreparable harm" to residents of Texas and Idaho, the two states that challenged the regulations in the lawsuit filed on Jan. 18. Brown declined...

The House of Representatives voted 227-198 Thursday to overturn the Biden administration’s “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, which has been heavily criticized for broadening the definition of what are considered “navigable waters” subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act. Republicans say the rule places a costly burden on landowners, ranchers, and farmers by claiming regulatory control over lands containing small streams and wetlands. All but one Republican, Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, voted to overturn the rule, with nine Democrats joining. The resolution was introduced early February and co-sponsored by 170 members of Congress. “President Biden’s new...

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration took action Thursday to restore federal protections for hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, undoing a Trump-era rule that was considered one of that administration’s hallmark environmental rollbacks. At issue is a regulation sometimes referred to as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, that defines the types of waterways qualifying for federal protection under the Clean Water Act. The regulation has long been a point of contention among environmental groups, farmers, homebuilders, lawmakers and the courts. The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army reinstates a rule in...

To finally determine a lasting definition of waterways that qualify for federal protection under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new water director says everyone with a stake in the issue will need to be engaged. Radhika Fox recently spoke to The Associated Press about the Biden administration’s plan to rewrite the regulation, also called Waters of the United States. […] She was previously CEO of the conservation advocacy group U.S. Water Alliance and policy director at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. […] “If we look back 50 years ago, what really prompted us to create the...

Another day, another barrage of hysterical reactions to a marginal regulatory reform. The latest cause for concern is the White House's finalized clean water rule that renounces the federal government's ability to regulate ponds, puddles, and (some) ditches. Yesterday's regulation replaces the prior Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule issued by the Obama administration in 2015. The Obama-era rule was controversial from the get-go, with multiple Red states filing legal challenges claiming it exceeded the federal government's authority to regulate water pollution. A slew of federal court rulings stayed the implementation of the rule in over half the states....

The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Thursday afternoon scaling back an Obama-era regulation farmers and energy producers claimed saddled them with unnecessary burdens. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the rule change in Las Vegas, effectively hemming in a regulation restricting the use of fertilizers and pesticides. President Donald Trump promised to repeal his predecessor’s “Waters of the United States” policy when he was running in 2016. Rolling back WOTUS saves landowners, farmers and businesses from being forced to hire “teams of attorneys to tell them how to use their own land,” Wheeler told reporters at a meeting of the...

The Trump administration lifted federal protections Thursday for some of the nation’s millions of miles of streams, arroyos and wetlands, completing one of its most far-reaching environmental rollbacks. The changes will scale back which waterways qualify for protection against pollution and development under the half-century-old Clean Water Act. President Donald Trump has made a priority of the rollback of clean-water protections from his first weeks in office. Trump says he is targeting federal rules and regulations that impose unnecessary burdens on businesses.

No one told Jack LaPant that he could be in violation of the Clean Water Act for farming his own land. That’s mostly because the federal law includes a clear exemption for “normal” farming activities. But it’s also because the government officials LaPant consulted didn’t view overturned dirt that has been tilled and plowed as pollution. In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the Clean Water Act with the Environmental Protection Agency, began legal action against LaPant for plowing he did in 2011 to plant wheat on a ranch property he owned in Northern California. But in March...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Mike Enzi and John Barrasso and Congresswoman Liz Cheney, all R-Wyo., applauded the Environmental Protection Agency for announcing final plans to repeal and replace the Obama-era Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation. "I am glad the administration is repealing the excessively burdensome Waters of the United States rule, which was a massive regulatory overreach that should have never been allowed in the first place," Enzi said. "This rule gave the federal government power to regulate nearly every creek or pond. States know best how to manage our resources. This announcement is good news for...

BLM’s westward trek and enviros losing water battle Move’em out The Department of Interior is moving forward with their plan to relocate the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to Grand Junction, Colorado. The reorganization would have the top twenty-seven BLM positions make the move to Grand Junction while three hundred or so will be assigned to various positions in the West. Sixty-one positions will remain in D.C. The plan to move BLM headquarters is vehemently opposed by the environmental lobby groups, which means, guess what, it is opposed by the Democrats in Congress. Leading the pack...

U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood has handed a victory to the state of Georgia and nine other states that sued the federal government (and to the rest of the nation) by declaring that the WOTUS Rule is unlawful. Wood stated that the rule, which was intended to provide better protection of the nation’s water, violated the Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, and she remanded it back to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers for further work. She wrote that while the agencies have authority to interpret the phrase “waters of the United...

The name of a Navy veteran may be cleared after he was convicted, fined, and imprisoned for digging ponds in a wooded area near his Montana home, to supply water in case of fire. The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling against Joe Robertson, who was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks. Any definitive legal victory for Robertson would be posthumous, since he died March 18 at age 80. But his lawyers describe the Supreme Court’s action as a “big win” for Robertson’s widow, Carrie, who...

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction to 11 more states against former President Barack Obama’s Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule Friday, Politico reported. A federal judge in North Dakota exempted 13 other states from the rule in 2015 after the rule was finalized. Friday’s wave of injunctions, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood of Georgia’s Southern District, symbolizes the growing opposition to the rule. “The WOTUS rules are a blatant power grab by the EPA,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in a June 2017 statement. “The federal government exceeded its statutory authority...

Federal Register proposal comes days after Trump administration moves to repeal of federal fracking ruleThe Trump administration formally acted Wednesday to repeal the 2015 Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule, dealing another blow to the Obama-era environmental regulatory regime. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Army announced that the proposed WOTUS withdrawal would be published Thursday in the Federal Register, launching the 30-day comment period. In addition to rescinding the 2015 Clean Water Rule, the agencies said they will also reevaluate the definition of “waters of the United States,” in keeping with President Trump‘s Feb. 28 executive order....

[snip] American Farm Bureau Federation,I have closely followed the Duarte Nursery v. Army Corps of Engineers case...Mr. Duarte is facing trial in federal court in California....facing $2.8-million in penalties...