Judge Blocks WOTUS Rule In Colorado While Legal Challenges Increase

摘要

A federal judge in Colorado has blocked the Trump administration's narrowed definition of waters of the United States (WOTUS) from being implemented in that state, hours after another federal judge rejected a nationwide halt to the rule and while legal challenges to the WOTUS policy increase from environmentalists and other EPA critics. Judge William Martinez of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado issued the stay of the rule late in the day June 19, finding the new WOTUS rule will create harm to the state, and that Colorado is likely to prevail in its challenge to the rule due to inherent problems in a fractured Supreme Court Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction ruling that the administration relies on in part for its rule. His ruling came shortly after a federal judge in California the same day denied a request from California, New York and 15 other states to block the rule from going into effect nationwide June 22. Martinez in his order "finds that Colorado advances an unusual and partly self-contradictory theory of harm, but Colorado has nonetheless satisfied the elements required to obtain preliminary relief. The Court will therefore enjoin [EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers] from implementing their new regulation in Colorado."