Search Results for: CWA

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted an en banc rehearing Wednesday to Texas in the state’s dispute with the federal government over a barrier meant to deter migrants from crossing the Rio Grande, vacating the court’s previous judgment. This means that the full court will hear the case instead of a [...]

A US federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Texas can leave the floating barrier in the Rio Grande after a district court ordered the state to remove it on Wednesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott appealed the order along with an emergency motion to stay the district court’s order earlier on Thursday. A panel of judges [...]

A Texas federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday that ordered Texas to move its floating barrier from the Rio Grande’s main waters to the riverbank. US Senior District Judge David Alan Ezra granted the US Department of Justice’s request for the preliminary injunction pending a final judgment in the dispute between Texas [...]

Mexican authorities confirmed Thursday that they recovered two bodies from the Rio Grande. Authorities recovered one of the bodies, a Mexican national, from buoys recently floated by Texas in an effort to slow border crossings from Mexico. The second body, a Honduran national, was recovered further upstream, away from the buoys. The incidents have renewed [...]

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint Monday against the State of Texas over its construction of a floating barrier comprised of buoys on the Rio Grande, the river that serves as a border between Mexico and Texas. The suit follows communication from the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division to Texas Governor [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that wetlands must be adjacent to and “indistinguishable” from protected waters in order to qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Delivering a decision in Sackett v. EPA, the Court sided with the appellants, prioritizing the rights of wetland owners whose property is not adjacent to protected [...]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday released the Cumulative Impacts Addendum to provide legal guidance on addressing how pollution and other factors cumulatively impact the health and welfare of vulnerable groups to a disproportionate extent over time. The 52-page document details several statutes and regulations which could allow accounting for the lived experience of [...]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers Friday released a finalized definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) in the context of the country’s Clean Water Act (CWA). The CWA was first enacted in 1972, and multiple administrations have since attempted to revise what protectable waters entail and who defines [...]

The US Supreme Court Monday heard its first oral arguments of the term in Sackett v. EPA over whether wetlands are “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The controversy arose in 2007 when “without a CWA permit, —who operated a commercial construction and excavation business—dumped approximately 1700 cubic yards of [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta and Guam v. United States. In Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, the plaintiffs, two conservative nonprofits,  are “challenging the constitutionality of California’s requirement that charities and nonprofits operating in the state provide the state attorney general’s office with the [...]