Just hours before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Waters of the U.S.” rule was to go into effect, a federal judge in North Dakota granted a temporary injunction, a win for the 13 states which joined a suit asking for the guidelines to be suspended.
South Dakota was part of the lawsuit along with Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, North Dakota and Wyoming.
South Dakota Farm Bureau President Scott VanderWal made the following statement:
“South Dakota Farm Bureau is very pleased with this decision by U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson. This ruling is huge for agriculture, for local governments, and for states’ rights. It should give more time to make the case in the courts that EPA and the Corps of Engineers overstepped their authority and abused the process. South Dakota Farm Bureau applauds our Attorney General, Marty Jackley, for getting involved in this all-important effort to preserve the rights of states to manage their own water and to limit the power of the federal government. Farm Bureau will keep fighting to protect farmers and ranchers from the layers of regulation, ambiguous rules, and harsh penalties that federal regulators want to pour on our private land.”
South Dakota Farm Bureau is the state’s largest general agriculture organization, representing 15,000 farm, ranch and rural families across the state.