E&E NEWS: CLEAN WATER RULE: Trump admin wants Texas court as WOTUS battleground

The Department of Justice wants legal challenges related to the Obama-era Clean Water Rule to play out in a Texas court. The Trump administration, which recently finalized a suspension of the rule, asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday to move two lawsuits challenging that delay to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The Texas court is the preferred venue of industry groups and states opposing the Clean Water Rule, also known as the Waters of the U.S. rule, or WOTUS, with three lawsuits against the regulation pending there. Litigants in those cases have asked for an injunction barring implementation of WOTUS, and a hearing has been set for Feb. 22 there. The administration says it only makes sense for the same court to hear legal challenges to both WOTUS and its two-year suspension.

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