Bismarck, N.D. – State officials have announced that North Dakota is one of 23 states that joined West Virginia in bringing the lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking a federal judge to declare the rule unlawful and vacate it.
The 24 states involved in the lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Governor Burgum released the following statement:
“This overreaching rule would wrongly classify nearly every stream, pond and wetland as a federally managed water, creating confusion and driving up costs for consumers by unlawfully restricting the activities of farmers, ranchers, builders and landowners across the country, especially in North Dakota.
We’re grateful for Attorney General Wrigley’s successful efforts to get this lawsuit filed in North Dakota, as our many wetlands and waterways make our state particularly susceptible to this misguided rule. In North Dakota, we continue to exercise our state’s authority to protect our own waters from pollution, and as a result we have some of the cleanest air and water in the nation.”
