Regulations on waterways instituted by the Biden administration in December have been halted in Texas and Idaho by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Vincent Brown.
The Galveston-based judge issued a preliminary injunction on Sunday against regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that determined hundreds of additional waterways, streams, and wetlands were protected under the Clean Water Act.
Texas’ lawsuit, filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton in January, specifically challenges the EPA’s claim that the Clean Water Act establishes jurisdiction over all waterways regardless of how navigable they are.
In a statement released after Brown’s injunction, Paxton said, “While I continue to battle the rule in court, this preliminary injunction is a major blow to the Biden Administration’s radical environmental agenda.”
“The unlawful rule would have saddled Texans across the state with crushing new regulations, slowing our state’s economic development and limiting our job growth,” he continued. “Securing an injunction stops the rule from going into effect. This is an important victory protecting the people of Texas from destructive federal overreach.”
The EPA has said its goal with these regulations is “to protect public health, the environment, and downstream communities while supporting economic opportunity, agriculture, and industries that depend on clean water,” per AP News.
Radhika Fox, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, previously told AP News that the rule “balances that protecting of our water resources with the needs of all water users, whether it’s farmers, ranchers, industry, watershed organizations.”
Fox explained that the rule increases protections for wetlands, lakes, ponds, streams, and other waterways.
The reworked rule from “the Biden administration restored needed clean water protections so that our nation’s waters are guarded against pollution for fishing, swimming, and as sources of drinking water,” added Kelly Moser, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Clean Water Defense Initiative, per AP News.
About half of all states are challenging these regulations, according to AP News, but Judge Brown’s injunction only applies to Texas and Idaho.
Thus far, five lawsuits have been filed against the regulation in federal court.
The EPA does not care about people’s health.
I can cite examples where the EPA administrators knowingly put people in harms way which resulted in death or ill health.
The agenda is politics in this case and others.
Both political parties have been involved with using the EPA for political ends.