Environmental Groups Challenge Navigable Waters Protection Rule
Multiple environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Defenders of Wildlife, have sued the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Army Corps of Engineers over the agencies’ new definition of waters of the United States.
The next chapter in the continuing saga of how to define “waters of the United States,” which determines the reach of the Clean Water Act, has started with the filing of three separate lawsuits by environmental groups challenging the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and US Army Corps of Engineers’ April 21 Navigable Waters Protection Rule. The rule rolls back the Obama-era definition of waters of the United States, introducing a narrower definition. The environmental groups argue that the agencies’ line-drawing between federally regulated waters and nonregulated waters is arbitrary and contrary to the weight of science. The suits also allege that the agencies adopted the rule without properly considering the impact that the rule would have on the “integrity of the Nation’s waters.”
Photo credit: perc.org.
