Wisconsin Small Business Cheers Temporary Court Victory over EPA on Waters Rule
Madison (October 9, 2015) – Bill G. Smith, Wisconsin state
director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), this
morning issued a statement reacting to the federal 6th Circuit Court of
Appeals’ decision blocking the controversial Waters of the US rule from taking
effect in Wisconsin:
“Small businesses in Wisconsin and across the country are
breathing a sigh of relief today. Our members are grateful for the
Court’s recognition that the WOTUS rule has created a ‘whirlwind of confusion’
and that blocking its implementation here is the practicable way to resolve the
deep legal question of whether it can withstand constitutional muster.”
In a decision rendered this morning, the 6th Circuit Court
concluded:
“A stay allows for a more deliberate determination whether
this exercise of Executive power, enabled by Congress and explicated by the
Supreme Court, is proper under the dictates of federal law. A stay temporarily
silences the whirlwind of confusion that springs from uncertainty about the
requirements of the new Rule and whether they will survive legal testing. A
stay honors the policy of cooperative federalism that informs the Clean Water
Act and must attend the shared responsibility for safeguarding the nation’s
waters. See 33 U.S.C. § 1251(b) (“It is the policy of Congress to recognize,
preserve, and protect the primary responsibilities and rights of the States to
prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution.”). In light of the disparate rulings
on this very question issued by district courts around the country—enforcement
of the Rule having been preliminarily enjoined in thirteen states4 —a stay will,
consistent with Congress’s stated purpose of establishing a national policy, 33
U.S.C. § 1251(a), restore uniformity of regulation under the familiar, if
imperfect, pre-Rule regime, pending judicial review.”
NFIB is one of several litigants who have challenged the
constitutionality of the sweeping new regulation, which gives the federal
government broad authority to regulate not only major waterways like rivers,
lakes and bays, as the Clean Water Act specifies, but local and even private
bodies of water as well. Several weeks ago another federal court
representing 13 states issued a stay, blocking the EPA from enforcing the rule
until the legal disputes are resolved. The EPA, however, insisted that
the Court’s decision applied to only those states, and that the WOTUS rule
could be enforced everywhere else. Today’s decision dams up that
plan as well.
“This regulation has the potential to dramatically alter the
economy by placing a massively complicated set of federal rules on local
development,” said Smith. “Local businesses in Wisconsin are threatened,
and the 6th Circuit Court was right today in protecting all of them until the
Supreme Court can resolve the matter.”
For more information about NFIB please visit www.nfib.com.
