Source: Environment &Energy News, February 6, 2018 By: Ariel Wittenberg, E&E News Reporter
States led by Democrats and environmental groups filed lawsuits today challenging the Trump administration over its two-year delay of the Clean Water Rule.
Both lawsuits accuse U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers of exceeding their statutory authority under the Clean Water Act and Administrative Procedure Act.
The states’ lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Democratic attorneys general of New York, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and the District of Columbia…
The environmental groups’ lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Carolina by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of American Rivers, Clean Water Action, Defenders of Wildlife, Charleston Waterkeeper, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Coastal Conservation League, Friends of the Rappanhannock, North Carolina Coastal Federation and North Carolina Wildlife Federation.
These are the first of what are expected to be many lawsuits over the Trump administration’s attempt to delay the 2015 Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS, which sought to outline what wetlands and isolated waterways get Clean Water Act protection.
The suits are also the first legal challenges filed against the Trump administration since the Supreme Court ruled last month that WOTUS-related challenges must be decided by federal district courts…
The states’ lawsuit says the agencies acted outside their statutory authority. “Neither the (Clean Water Act) nor the (Administrative Procedure Act) authorized the agencies to suspend the Clean Water Rule for at least two years,” it says…
The Trump Administration attempted to justify the action by framing a WOTUS delay as reverting to the “status quo”. Because the Supreme Court recently ruled that legal challenges to WOTUS belong in district court, a nationwide stay of the regulation issued by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will be withdrawn in the coming weeks. Suspending WOTUS before then is necessary to ensure consistent enforcement of the Clean Water Act across the country…