Within months of the final rule’s issuance, challengers rapidly gained a series of victories. Similarly, the American Public Power Association suggested the final rule is problematic because it would drastically expand the WOTUS jurisdiction of EPA and the Corps, “which would subject more utility projects and activities to Clean Water Act jurisdiction.”
According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the rule would create “significant practical problems” for companies operating nuclear power plants and planning new facilities. However, once finalized, the rule quickly drew ire, amassing legal challenges by at least 31 states and 52 non-state parties, which argued that it violates the 10th Amendment’s federalism principles and that it exceeds the Constitution’s commerce clause.Īmong challengers were a number of electric utilities, which expressed concerns that water near plants, such as water drainage ditches and cooling ponds, may be considered U.S.
Meanwhile, the EPA said that for more than a decade, it had received requests-from members of Congress, state and local officials, industry, agriculture, environmental groups, scientists, and the public-for a rulemaking that would clearly define and protect tributaries that impact the health of downstream waters. The federal entities reasoned that while the Clean Water Act, enacted in 1972, granted the federal government broad powers to limit pollution in so-called “navigable” waterways such as the Great Lakes, and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, a pair of Supreme Court decisions in 20 made it unclear whether the act also covered smaller bodies such as groundwater, headwaters, streams, and wetlands that feed those larger waterways. Army Corps of Engineers in June 2015 in a bid to protect streams and wetlands from pollution and degradation. The final Obama-era rule, also known as the “Clean Water Rule,” was promulgated by the EPA and the U.S. Industry experts said that while the ruling is unsurprising, it leaves open several questions about the future of the rule, even as the EPA and Army Corps work toward rescinding and recodifying the definition of WOTUS. However, the court also held that because the definition of the statutory term fell outside of Section 1369(b)(1) of the Clean Water Act, challenges to the rule must be filed in federal district courts-not in federal courts of appeal. The decision effectively lifts a stay placed on the rule by the federal court. Department of Defense et al., written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and issued on January 22, the court reversed judgment by the Sixth Circuit and remanded the case with instructions to dismiss petitions for review of the rule for lack of jurisdiction. In a ruling for National Association of Manufacturers v. Army Corps of Engineers rolled out in 2015 that asserts federal authority over small bodies of water with a broader definition of the statutory term, “waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS). Supreme Court unanimously reversed and remanded a rule the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S.
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