Federal District Courts Must Hear Challenges To The Obama Administration's Clean Water Rule

On Monday, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held that challenges to the Obama administration's 2015 Clean Water Rule, or "Waters of the United States" Rule (the "WOTUS" Rule), initially belong in federal district courts with competent jurisdiction to hear the cases, not in the federal courts of appeals.

The WOTUS Rule seeks to clarify the geographic and, in effect, jurisdictional scope of the Clean Water Act. The regulation defines which bodies of water qualify as "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act. This definition is pivotal to a determination by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") and the Army Corps of Engineers (the "Corps") as to whether a project will or will not require a Section 404 Clean Water Act permit. Challenges to the WOTUS Rule commenced almost immediately upon its publication in June 2015. More than 100 different parties, including over two dozen states, various industry groups and multiple environmental