Following Latest Ruling, Trump's Revised WOTUS Takes Effect
After years of controversy, a new ruling cleared the path for the Trump administration’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule to take effect on June 22, 2020.
“A federal judge in San Francisco … denied an 11th hour bid by a coalition of Democratic attorneys general to halt implementation of the Trump administration’s controversial new definition of streams and wetlands that warrant federal protection,” Politico reported. “While other Democrat-led states and environmental groups have active court challenges and have sought preliminary injunctions, none will be ready for a decision before the rule takes effect.”
WOTUS was put into place as a layer of the Clean Water Act meant to clarify water resource management under the Obama administration, and the Trump administration announced its intent to revise or rescind it in 2017. It opted to revise the rule in ways that make it more favorable for agricultural operations, but raise concern among environmental groups that the rule will make it easier for industrial polluters to harm source water quality.
In this recent ruling, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg acknowledged as much.
“Were the court tasked with the question of whether the new rule represents wise environmental policy or the best approach to protecting water resources that could be supported by scientific data, the result might be different,” Seeborg wrote, per Politico. “The court’s narrow role, however, is only to evaluate whether the rule has been adopted in compliance with the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act,” a federal statute that governs the process by which federal agencies issue regulations.
But the fact that there are no current legal barriers to stop the rule from going into effect does not mean that those opposed to it will cease their efforts. Just days after Seeborg’s ruling, a collection of environmental groups filed a new lawsuit to challenge the changes to WOTUS.
“The suit, filed by Earthjustice on behalf of Sierra Club, other environmental groups, and a number of tribes, argued the Trump administration erred in removing protections for wetlands and streams that result from rainfall,” The Hill reported. “The suit, filed on the day the law takes effect, is the third filed by a coalition of environmental groups and follows litigation filed by 17 states.”
For more information on how federal rulings can impact the environment, visit Water Online’s Regulations And Legislation Solutions Center.