Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton today released the following statement in response to a ruling by a federal judge in North Dakota limiting an injunction on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) sweeping water rule to 13 states:
“While we believe this should be a nationwide injunction, the judge was right in seeing the impending damage posed by these new rules and to enjoin it in 13 states. Texas has filed its own case challenging the EPA’s overreaching regulation of state waters. We will continue to fight the EPA’s blatant overreach in our own case and will work to protect the state and private property owners from this latest and potentially most invasive attempt by the Obama administration to control our lives and livelihoods.”
Attorney General Paxton filed a lawsuit against the EPA’s water rule on June 29. The final rule became effective August 28, expanding the scope of the federal government’s jurisdiction over waters under the Clean Water Act.