Denying a Biden administration request to temporarily retain the rule, the judge reestablished "the careful balance of state and federal power to protect clean water that Congress intended when it wrote the Clean Water Act."
Environmental and Indigenous advocates on Friday cheered as a federal judge rejected a Biden administration request to temporarily keep in place a Trump-era Clean Water Act rule that one attorney said would have "devastated" states’ ability to manage their rivers.
"The Trump administration took an industry wish list and ran with it, trampling over state and tribal authority and public rights to clean water in the process."
On Thursday, Judge William H. Alsup of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco threw out a June 2020 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule changing the Clean Water Act Section 401 certification process to allow federal agencies to approve large projects—including fossil fuel pipelines, hydroelectric dams, industrial plants, wetland developments, and municipal facilities—against the wishes of states and Native American tribes.
In July 2020, 20 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over the rule change. That September, Indigenous tribes and green groups also filed suit against […]
Full article: ‘Like It Never Happened’: Federal Judge Tosses Trump Attack on Clean Water Rule