Obama Admin Scores Interim Win In Clean Water Fight

The lengthy legal case against the Obama administration’s controversial Clean Water Rule featured a positive — albeit minor — ruling for the president this month.

“The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati issued a 2-1 decision to proceed with challenges in appeals court, and not in district courts spread around the country,” Greenwire reported.

Both chambers of Congress have voted to overturn the rule, which Republicans and the agriculture industry say is an example of government overreach. In January, President Obama vetoed a congressional measure that would have overturned the regulation, issuing the ninth veto of his presidency. That means the fate of the rule will likely depend on what happens in court.

"Too many of our waters have been left vulnerable," Obama said, per USA Today at the time of the veto. "Pollution from upstream sources ends up in the rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and coastal waters near which most Americans live and on which they depend for their drinking water, recreation, and economic development."

Why does the latest court development represent a positive outcome for the Obama administration?

“State, industry and agriculture interests have filed challenges to the EPA-Army Corps jurisdictional rule, better known as the Waters of the U.S. rule, or WOTUS, in several district courts scattered across the United States.These petitioners argue that these cases should be considered by local district courts first,” Greenwire reported.

In essence, the February ruling means that “the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected calls from opponents of the regulation to dismiss their cases and allow them to first go to lower courts with their challenges to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule,” The Hill reported.

The development amounts to “a procedural win for the Obama administration,” Greenwire explained. “Department of Justice attorneys asked the panel in oral arguments to keep the challenges at the appeals court level, given the broad applicability of the water rule across the United States.”

“Barring an effort by the Petitioners to seek review of this decision — either en banc or with the Supreme Court — the decision means that the Sixth Circuit will hear the merits of the consolidated challenges to the Clean Water Rule,” The National Law Review reported.

Judge David McKeague, writing for the court’s majority, explained the decision.

“Movants have failed to identify any particular circumstances or practical considerations that would justify holding that adjudication of the instant petitions for judicial review in the various district courts would better serve Congress’s purposes,” he wrote, per The Hill.

Still, the court decision is a controversial one.

“The Sixth Circuit’s basis for finding that it has jurisdiction to hear the challenges to the rule was far from unanimous. One judge found the court has no authority to hear the case,” The National Law Review reported.

The federal Clean Water Rule expands the number of U.S. waterways regulated by the federal government. The EPA argues that the rule is necessary to protect waterways and because Supreme Court decisions make it unclear what the agency may regulate under the Clean Water Act. Opponents, including congressional Republicans and the agriculture industry, say the EPA overstepped its bounds in rolling out the new regulation.