Posted May 29, 2020 New Mexico ranchers are seeking to block implementation of portions of the Trump administration's waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, arguing the rule's application of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to intermittent tributaries and wetlands that do not directly abut other regulated waterbodies is contrary to Supreme Court precedent. "Ranchers will suffer irreparable harm if EPA and the Army are allowed to regulate their private property under the Intermittent Tributary and Non-abutting Wetland Provisions," the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association (NMCGA) says in a May 26 motion for preliminary injunction filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, one of several legal challenges over the final rule that narrows the definition of CWA jurisdiction. These provisions will require ranchers to spend months to years, and tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, to obtain CWA dredge-and-fill permits from the Army Corps of Engineers in order to farm and otherwise use their own land, and the time required to obtain the permits would prevent the ranchers from working their own land, says the motion filed by the free-market Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) on behalf of the ranchers in NMCGA v. EPA.
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