A Texas federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration’s “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule in the state of Texas.
In late December, the federal agency announced its revised definition of WOTUS, prompting Paxton’s lawsuit.
“The final rule advances the objective of the Clean Water Act and ensures critical protections for the nation’s vital water resources, which support public health, environmental protection, agricultural activity, and economic growth across the United States,” the website states.
Brown’s decision came one day before the new rule took effect.
Waters of the United States
The 1972 Clean Water Act, passed as an amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, granted federal jurisdiction over navigable waters, defined in the rule as “waters of the United States.”The revised WOTUS rule would broaden the “navigable waters” definition beyond territorial seas and intrastate waters to include isolated wetlands, lakes, streams, and off-channel reservoirs.
It would also allow the agencies to impose expensive permitting processes disrupting the state’s management of its own energy, agriculture, and transportation infrastructure, Paxton explained in a press release.
The new WOTUS rule seeks to “vastly expand the federal government’s regulatory power to include much of America’s waters, despite Congress expressly narrowing federal authority to only ‘navigable waters,’” according to court documents.
In 2019, a U.S. District Court ruled that a similar Obama-era rule expanding EPA regulations was unlawful.
Preliminary injunctions have yet to be granted in those cases.
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