The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s contested Waters of the United States rule, the court said Monday.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court judges ruled that federal law allows the appeals court to hear the case. Many groups and states have sued to stop the rule, with those cases being consolidated in the Sixth Circuit.
“Recognition of our authority and our duty to directly review the Clean Water Rule in this multi-circuit case is in all respects consonant with the governing case law and in furtherance of Congress’s purposes,” the decision states.
The EPA says the rule would protect streams and wetlands that affect water quality and would more precisely define waters protected by the Clean Water Act. But ranchers, farmers and states argue it gives the federal agency unprecedented authority over drainage ditches and nearly anything else that can contain water.
The same court ruled in October that the rule would be blocked while the case was being heard.
Republicans and even some Democrats from rural states have criticized the rule. Both chambers of Congress voted to repeal the regulation, but President Obama vetoed the resolution.
The court has not scheduled the case, and the rule remains blocked while the case is pending.
