Earlier this week Attorney General Sam Olens asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to enter a nationwide order prohibiting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from enforcing its new “Waters of the United States” rule, which unlawfully expands the federal government’s regulatory reach over local streams, lands, and farms. Seventeen other state attorneys general also joined the request.

“The EPA’s Waters of the United States rule will have dire consequences for homeowners, farmers, and local businesses by forcing them to navigate a complex federal bureaucracy to obtain costly permits in order to perform everyday tasks like digging ditches, building fences, or spraying fertilizer,” Olens said. “I’m doing everything I can to fight the rule and protect Georgia from this unlawful expansion of federal power.”

Attorney General Olens’s request is part of an ongoing, multi-front effort to combat the EPA’s new rule. In addition to challenging the rule in the Sixth Circuit, Attorney General Olens is also challenging the rule in a case brought in the U.S. District for the Southern District of Georgia which is now on appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

In a similar case, a federal court in North Dakota recently entered an order prohibiting the EPA from enforcing its new rule in thirteen states. Attorney General Olens has asked the Southern District of Georgia, the Sixth Circuit, and the Eleventh Circuit to provide the same relief to the people of Georgia.

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