Chamber of Commerce, et al. v. EPA (WOTUS Rule - Oklahoma District Court)

Case Updates

After the Trump administration’s rule rescinding the 2015 rule took effect on December 23, thus eliminating the 2015 WOTUS rule, the U.S. Chamber and its co-plaintiffs moved to dismiss their appeal regarding an injunction against the 2015 rule. The Tenth Circuit subsequently dismissed the appeal as moot.

Click here to view the opinion and order.

Click here to view the Chamber’s supplemental brief.

The U.S. Chamber is a plaintiff alongside the State of Oklahoma and other state and national business groups challenging the Obama administration’s 2015 WOTUS rule, which is still in effect in certain states, including Oklahoma, notwithstanding the Trump administration’s attempts to rescind and replace that rule.

Click here to view the order.

Click here to view the motion.

The Trump administration also has enacted a rule to delay the effective date for the 2015 WOTUS rule until 2020.

Click here to view the order.

Press release: U.S. Chamber Praises Executive Order on Water Rule

Less than twenty-four hours after the Sixth Circuit’s jurisdiction ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma surprisingly dismissed the Chamber’s district court lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction. Remarkably—and unusually—the district court did not even wait for the government to file a motion to dismiss the case following the Sixth Circuit’s decision. Nor did the court give the Chamber a chance to respond that the district court has an independent obligation to assess its own jurisdiction. Instead, the court’s brief order asserted that the Sixth Circuit’s decision “speaks for itself that jurisdiction is appropriate only in the appellate courts” and concluded that “it is unnecessary to wait for any party for file a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.”

Subsequently, the U.S. Chamber filed an appeal before the Tenth Circuit.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with the National Federation of Independent Business, Portland Cement Association, State Chamber of Oklahoma and Tulsa Regional Chamber, filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seeking to overturn a regulation often referred to as the “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule, which would dramatically expand the areas regulated under the Clean Water Act.

The lawsuit alleges that the EPA’s WOTUS rule disrupts the careful balance Congress set forth in the Clean Water Act, which gives the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers the authority to regulate interstate navigable waters but specifically preserves the primary role of the States in planning the development and use of local land and water resources. The lawsuit also alleges that the Agencies failed to comply with their statutory obligation to assess the economic harm numerous industries and small businesses will suffer because of the regulation.

James P. McCann, John J. Carwile, and Mary E. Kindelt of McDonald, McCann, Metcalf & Carwile, LLP served as co-counsel for the U.S. Chamber, et al. in this case, as well as Michael H. Park, William S. Consovoy, Thomas R. McCarthy, and J. Michael Connolly of Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC.