Judge Rules WOTUS Back On The Books

A federal court ruling lifting a delay on the “Waters of the US” rule, has drawn a swift rebuke by key farm groups.  American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duval calls the South Carolina U.S. District Court ruling that upends a Trump EPA delay of WOTUS ‘til 2020 while the agency rewrites WOTUS, “misguided.”

“Effectively what has happened is, the decision the court took is going to take a great deal of regulatory uncertainty and we would like the Administration as best as they can, as swiftly as they can to try to limit the impact of that ruling,” said the AFB’s Paul Schlagle.

Schlagle  said the Trump EPA could go back to court to appeal the injunction that now restores WOTUS in 26-states, or pursue quicker administrative action.

“What we would like to see is the Agency and the Administration as promptly as the law allows to come up with a replacement rule and to withdraw [WOTUS] officially that was that was enacted a few years ago, and replace it with something more consistent with Congressional intent under the Clean Water Act.”

24-states are still protected from the WOTUS rule by two other federal court decisions.

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