A federal judge has put a roadblock in front of Joe Biden’s climate change agenda calling it an example of “destructive federal overreach.”
Jeffrey V. Brown, a district judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, ruled that the Biden EPA’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule “poses irreparable harm” to residents of Texas and Idaho, the two states that challenged the regulations, according to Fo News.
Per Fox:
While I continue to battle the rule in court, this preliminary injunction is a major blow to the Biden Administration’s radical environmental agenda,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement Monday. “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.
“Securing an injunction stops the rule from going into effect,” Paxton added. “This is an important victory protecting the people of Texas from destructive federal overreach.”
On Dec. 30, the last working day of 2022, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers quietly announced they had approved the WOTUS regulation and that it would be implemented on Monday. After announcing it, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the rule “safeguards our nation’s waters.”
The rule ultimately opens the door for the federal government to regulate wetlands, lakes, ponds, streams and “relatively permanent” waterways, largely mimicking a pre-2015 environmental rule set during the Obama administration which implemented the changes in an effort to curb water pollution. The regulation is a broad interpretation of which water sources require protection under the Clean Water Act.
Obama tried to push through this same outrageous power grab, but when Trump took office he put an end to the rule. Naturally, Biden started it up all over again.
Judge Brown noted that Texas proved that the rules would cost states millions in compliance costs in the first year alone.
The House of Representatives is also working to end these onerous rules.
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