Alabama Joins 10 States in Filing for Preliminary Injunction to Halt EPA Waters of U.S. Rule

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Luther Strange
Alabama Attorney General www.ago.alabama.gov

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 July 22, 2015

ALABAMA ATTORNEY GENERAL LUTHER STRANGE ANNOUNCES ALABAMA, AS PART OF MULTI-STATE COALITION, FILES MOTION TO HALT WATERS OF U.S. RULE

(MONTGOMERY) – Attorney General Luther Strange announced that Alabama and 10 other states have filed a motion in federal court seeking a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency’s controversial “Waters of the U.S.” rule.

“After the EPA published plans on June 29, 2015, to regulate property owners’ ponds and ditches, Alabama joined a coalition of states taking legal action to stop this unlawful overreach,” said Attorney General Luther Strange.  “With only a month before the EPA is to begin enforcing its unprecedented regulatory power grab, Alabama has once again teamed up with other concerned states to block the implementation of the Waters of the U.S. rule.

“On Tuesday, Alabama and 10 other states filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the enforcement of this unwarranted federal rule which both deprives landowners of their property rights and sidesteps states’ legal authority to regulate small streams.

“Unquestionably, the rule expands EPA’s authority far beyond what was intended by the Clean Water Act – protecting America’s lakes and rivers from pollution – to every stream, ditch, and pond within our state, even those that only occasionally hold water.   The EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule, which is perhaps its most extreme to date, is undertaken with one goal in mind – to vastly expand its control over private property and in open defiance of legal rights of states to regulate their own local waterways.”

On Tuesday, Alabama joined Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin in filing the motion for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule which is set to begin on August 28, 2015.  In response, Chief Judge Lisa G. Wood set an August 12, 2015, date for briefing on the motion.

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