AFBF, along with dozens of agricultural, business and municipal entities, on Tuesday November 01, 2016 asked a federal court to vacate the EPA’s and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ “Waters of the United States” rule. The brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit lays out in detail the substance of the groups’ allegations. It follows a year of litigation over which the court had jurisdiction to hear challenges to the expansive and unlawful rule.  

The coalition’s brief explains how EPA flouted important procedural safeguards designed to ensure a fair and thoughtful rulemaking process. EPA tactics included withholding key documents until after the public comment period had closed, ignoring and ridiculing critical public comments and issuing illegal “covert propaganda” in an effort to generate superficial public support for the rule.  

“EPA set out to achieve a predetermined outcome and then manipulated the public notice-and-comment process to achieve that outcome,” AFBF General Counsel Ellen Steen said. “It treated the rulemaking process like a game to be won instead of a deliberative process for developing lawful and reasonable regulations.”  

AFBF news release

Newsline (podcast