A U.S. district judge in North Dakota this week granted an injunction to 26 states on the Biden administration’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which would dramatically change federal regulatory jurisdiction over water across the country.
Twenty-four states “have persuasively shown that the new 2023 Rule poses a threat to their sovereign rights and amounts to irreparable harm,” U.S. district judge Daniel Hovland, of North Dakota, said in his order granting an injunction.
The injunction now applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The rule was already on shaky ground in other states based on ongoing litigation.
Soon after the rule was published and took effect on March 20, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted the preliminary injunction only to the states of Texas and Idaho, but denied a motion to intervene and a motion for a national injunction. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was the defendant in the case.
More broadly, the rule is subject to ongoing litigation at the Supreme Court of the U.S., with a decision in Sackett v. EPA likely to be issued by June 2023.
Meanwhile, the Senate recently voted to overturn the rule, but President Biden vetoed the Senate’s resolution.
Four Democrats voted to overturn the rule: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and Jon Tester (D-MT). Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) also voted to overturn the rule.
The House voted earlier in March by a margin of 227-198, with nine Democrats joining Republicans.
