Judge blocks EPA rule affecting Mo. waterways

A federal judge yesterday blocked a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clean-water rule Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster claimed was harmful to the Show-Me State.

The judge in the U.S. District Court of North Dakota stopped the Aug. 28 implementation of an EPA and Army Corps of Engineers rule that would define “waters of the United States” to include land that’s dry most of the year. In filing suit against the rule in June, Koster said the rule exceeded the agencies’ legal authority and would declare thousands of acres of privately owned Missouri land subject to federal water regulation.

Yesterday, Judge Ralph Erikson found motions for a preliminary injunction filed by Missouri and 12 other states had merit because the EPA appeared to have violated its congressional authority and failed to comply with Administrative Procedure Act requirements, according to a news release.

“In issuing the preliminary injunction, the federal court sent an unmistakable message to the EPA: You have gone too far,” Koster said in the release. “Missouri’s land and water resources should be regulated by officials accountable to the people of the state, not by arbitrary standards dictated from Washington, D.C.”

The other states involved were Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

The Missouri Corn Growers Association, which has some 2,700 members, applauded the decision, but with a caveat.

"While this temporary injunction is a welcome reprieve, this issue is a long way from over,” organization officials said in a statement “The U.S. Senate needs to follow the lead of the U.S. House of Representatives and pass Senate Bill 1140 to force EPA to pull the rule as written."   

SB 1140 would limit the power the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers have to declare waters as federally regulated, according to Congress.gov.