August 23, 2018
A federal court has been asked to stay a nationwide injunction that effectively makes the 2015 waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule the law of the land in 26 states. This is according to a motion filed by agriculture groups on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. On Aug. 16, WOTUS took effect in 26 states after a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction on the EPA rule that delayed the implementation of the Obama-era regulation. The 2015 rule remains on hold in 24 states after a series of district court decisions in North Dakota and Georgia.
The groups led by the American Farm Bureau Federation filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. They are attempting to overturn the South Carolina district court ruling that threw out the EPA’s rule to delay the implementation of the 2015 WOTUS rule by two years until 2020.
In the motion filed on Monday, the farm groups asked for a stay pending that appeal.
“The complications of such a patchwork regime are severe,” the ag groups said. “As just one example, what are the agencies to do when a multi-state project implicates earth-moving activities in small, isolated features characterized as wetlands across portions of Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee? That single project will now be subject to two fundamentally different regulatory regimes — with only the portion in Illinois likely to demand federal permitting (at great expense and even greater delay) for activity in those isolated features. The problem would be multiplied many times over throughout the country in similar cases.”
The ag groups also include the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Producers Council, South Carolina Farm Bureau, Texas Farm Bureau and U.S. Poultry and Egg Association. Last week they asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Galveston, to issue a national injunction on the 2015 rule.
