Supreme Court to review jurisdictional rights of WOTUS rule

Updated Dec 24, 2015
This past October, a federal appeals court blocked enforcement of the WOTUS rule to allow time for extensive litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to play out.This past October, a federal appeals court blocked enforcement of the WOTUS rule to allow time for extensive litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to play out.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule is going to get a closer look from the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to the Associated Equipment Distributors, the top court in the country has decided to take on Hawkes Co. Inc. vs. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consider whether jurisdictional determinations made by the Army Corps of Engineers are subject to jurisdictional review.

The case was last heard in the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but district and appellate courts have been split on the controversial regulation. A nationwide stay blocking enforcement of the new rule was issued in October by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, presumably to remain in place until the legal challenges against the rule have been resolved.

Since the final version of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new clean water rule was announced, many Republican lawmakers – as well as several groups representing the aggregate, construction and landscaping industries – decried it as a power grab by the federal government.

While the rule is meant to solidify EPA’s authority over small bodies of water such as ponds and streams with some connection to larger bodies of water, opponents have argued that the WOTUS rule would give the agency power over ditches and puddles.

A Senate committee passed a bill in June that would throw out the rule and send the EPA back to the drawing board. The measure lays out guidelines for the EPA to follow in rewriting the rule.

But the White House has said the rule was put through an “extensive public engagement process” to determine what was needed from the regulation. The administration says the WOTUS rule will keep Americans healthier by keeping U.S. waters clean.

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