ELR Citation: 49 ELR 20089
No(s). 3:15-CV-00162 (S.D. Tex. May 28, 2019) (Hanks, J.)

A district court granted states' and industry groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to EPA's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 2015 Clean Water Rule. The states and groups argued that the final rulemaking violated the notice-and-comment requirements under the APA because the rulemaking's definition of "adjacent" was not a logical outgrowth of the proposed rulemaking's definition, and that the agencies denied interested parties an opportunity to comment on a connectivity report that served as the technical basis for the final rulemaking. The court agreed, finding that the final rulemaking deviated from the proposed rulemaking in a way that interested parties could not have reasonably anticipated, and that the agencies failed to give commentators an opportunity to refute the most critical factual material used to support the final rulemaking—the final technical report. It therefore granted summary judgment to the states and groups, and remanded the final rulemaking to the agencies for further proceedings.