Advocates, States Reject EPA Claim Of Deference For CWA Transfer Rule

摘要

Environmentalists and some states are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to rely heavily on its past rulings dealing with Clean Water Act (CWA) permit requirements for transfers of water in order to strike down EPA's 2008 rule exempting such transfers from permit mandates, arguing the rule is not due judicial deference as EPA and other states have claimed. In a Dec. 24 brief to the appellate court in Catskill Mountains Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Inc. et al. v. EPA, et al., environmentalist appellees point to 2001 and 2006 decisions by the 2nd Circuit - known as Catskills Ⅰ and Ⅱ - as establishing definitive precedent on the water-transfer issue, and say that EPA's decision to address water transfers in a rule rather than through agency memos does not require the court to reconsider the underlying legal question.