Acknowledging that states would have to "expend unrecoverable resources complying with a rule unlikely to withstand judicial scrutiny", U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland has blocked the Biden administration's expansion of "Waters of the United States" control over farms using the Environmental Protection Agency.
The actual Waters of the United States have long been protected, the new rule the Biden administration resurrected in December hopes to turn any body of water that can be linked to a larger body into something under federal - and therefore easily weaponized by environmental lawyers - control using the Clean Water Act.
The Obama administration was the first to attempt to regulate ponds on farms but no president in recent history has used regulatory agencies and the 'Chevron deference' ruling by the Supreme Court in 1984 to create regulations, guidelines, and executive orders to circumvent the law the way the Biden administration has. CDC, OSHA, EPA, FDA, every group controlled by the federal government has been weaponized in control of states at a breathtaking scale.
Concern about WOTUS from every group except environmental lawyers happy about being able to sue more farmers began when the Obama administration first tried this. Credit.
Congress even tried to undo this latest effort at executive branch overreach and President Biden predictably vetoed a bill that limited his ability to circumvent Congress. Which means it will end up in the Supreme Court.
