DOJ Asks Courts To Avoid CWA Jurisdiction Suits Amid Policy ‘Patchwork’

The Department of Justice is urging federal courts to avoid taking up cases on the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA) until it finalizes a rule to narrow an Obama-era policy on the law’s reach, even as the Trump administration continues to issue jurisdictional findings for waterbodies using a “patchwork” of varying standards. “Because the Corps and EPA are charged with administering the CWA, and because the process of revising the regulatory definition of ‘waters of the United States’...