Chief Justice John Roberts may have salvaged ObamaCare, but lower courts are proving to be more skeptical of executive overreach. On Friday the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stopped the Environmental Protection Agency’s new Clean Water Rule on grounds that it probably exceeds the agency’s legal authority.
The EPA rule, issued in May, extends federal jurisdiction over tens of millions of acres of private land that had been regulated by the states. In August a federal judge in North Dakota issued a preliminary injunction in 13 of the 31 states that have sued to block the rule, and the Sixth Circuit has now echoed that legal reasoning by enjoining the rule nationwide.
Ohio, Michigan and 16 other states challenged the rule, and a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit ruled two to one that the “petitioners have demonstrated a substantial possibility of success on the merits of their claims” and that a stay is needed to silence “the whirlwind of confusion that springs from the uncertainty” about the rule’s requirements.