After filing objections to the EPA and Corps of Engineers’ proposed “waters of the United States” rule in 2014, Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys have fulfilled their pledge to challenge the rule in court. Yesterday, PLF filed a lawsuit on behalf of several agricultural organizations and property owners because the regulation expands the scope of the Clean Water Act to an unprecedented extent, violating the terms of the Act and the Constitution’s limits on federal authority.

“We are suing to block the administration’s breathtaking attempt to control practically every pond, puddle, and ditch in the country,” stated PLF Principal Attorney M. Reed Hopper in a PLF news release.  “This new regulation is an open-ended license for federal bureaucrats to assert control over nearly all of the nation’s water, and most of the property, from coast to coast.”

The case is Washington Cattlemen’s Association v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.