Articles

The U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are attempting an unprecedented — and unconstitutional — power grab to extend the Clean Water Act (CWA) to cover “virtually any wet … spot in the country, including ditches, drains, seasonal puddle-like depressions, intermittent streams, ponds, impoundments, prairie potholes, and large ‘b ...

If forced to describe Pacific Legal Foundation as only one particular organization’s bête noire, I would find it tough to pick just one. The California Coastal Commission? The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service? Your average state regulatory agency? The pickings are vast, and Constitution-violating government entities numerous. But if forced ...

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate used a rare procedural device to pass Senate Joint Resolution 22, which would effectively negate the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation issued jointly this summer by U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. The Senate “resolution of disapproval” was sponsored and passionately advanced by ...

Today the American Farm Bureau released this video highlighting Pacific Legal Foundation’s fight on behalf of California family farming company Duarte Nursery, Inc., to vindicate farmers’ due process rights in environmental enforcement. In addition to its due process lawsuit against the Corps of Engineers, Duarte Nursery is also a plain ...

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House and Congressman from Wisconsin, wrote a timely piece for today’s Omaha World Herald criticizing the EPA’s new waters of the United States (WOTUS) definition. Ryan aptly sets out that the new rule is about power, and nothing less: The Obama administration’s sweeping new rule, dubbed Waters of the ...

Last November, we explained how the U.S. Senate was using a special procedure under the Congressional Review Act to enact a congressional “resolution of disapproval” that would overturn the illegal Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation jointly issued by U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. That same post also reminded Libe ...

According to a Morning Consult poll sponsored by the American Farm Bureau Federation, Chesapeake Bay residents prefer state and local governments to federal regulators when it comes to protecting local water resources and regulating land use. The poll sought opinions from Chesapeake Bay watershed voters on a range of issues related to the EPA’ ...

This week PLF asked the full Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear whether jurisdiction over challenges to the WOTUS rule is proper in the federal appeals courts or the federal trial courts. A month ago a three judge panel of the same court ruled that the appeals courts have jurisdiction instead of the trial courts. … ...

Over the last two years since it was proposed, the “waters of the United States” or “WOTUS rule” has ruffled more than a few feathers. As soon as the rule was published for comment, industry groups, local governments, and others affected by the rule all prepared to voice their concerns and defend their interests against  ...