The Obama
Administration’s
2015 Waters of the
United States
(WOTUS)
Rule has been
declared unlawful.
U.S. District Judge
Lisa Godbey Wood
declared the WOTUS
Rule to be unlawful
-- a victory for the
state of Georgia,
and nine other states,
that sued the federal
government.
Wood stated that the rule
violated the Clean Water Act
(CWA) 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 agencies
have authority to interpret
the phrase “waters of the
United States,” but that
authority isn’t limitless.
Implementation of WOTUS
led to a Wyoming farmer
being fined $37,500 a day
for constructing a stock pond
on his own property.
The American Farm Bureau
Federation praised Wood’s
decision:
“The court ruling
is clear affirmation of exactly
what we have been saying
for the past five years,”
AFBF General Counsel
Ellen Steen said.
Wood found the WOTUS rule’s
“vast expansion of jurisdiction
over waters and land traditionally
within the states’ regulatory authority
cannot stand absent a clear statement
from Congress in the CWA.
( CWA is the Clean Water Act )
Since no such statement
has been made,
the WOTUS Rule
is unlawful
under the CWA.”
“inclusion of all interstate waters
in the definition of ‘waters
of the United States,’
regardless of navigability,
extends [their] jurisdiction
beyond the scope of the CWA
because it reads the term
navigability out of the CWA.”