DC Court of Appeals - the motion for stay Denied!
The three judge appeal panel denied the Florida Intervenors and the US EPA appeal for a stay of Judge Moss judgement for vacatur of the delegation to the State of Florida for Section 404 of the Clean Water Act permitting authorizations.
Now Florida and the over 1600 permit applications must wait for the “Maintaining Cooperative Permitting Act of 2024,” as supported by Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio. If this bill passes the Senate, we know the companion bill will pass the House. However, time frames are critical when this bill passes Congress and goes to the Executive office for signatory, who will be in the White House at that time?
Reminder - If Florida’s delegation reverts to the Feds including the US Army Corps wetland delineation methodology this will in effect remove regulatory protections for isolated wetlands in Florida. (WEL blog 3/1)
Estimates of wetland coverage area in our State ranges from 30 to 33% of total. Of this percentage, over half would be classified as isolated. The Feds care if the surface water of the wetland has significant nexus connections with water bodies of parlance, meaning named bodies of water. ie bays, rivers, lakes, etc… Dr. Tobe’s wetland delineation methodology (Florida’s method) is concerned with removing contaminates from the water as it infiltrates through the hydric soils allowing the reduction/oxidation (redox) chemical reactions to occur.
Obviously, the waiting period was just extended for ‘404’ applications in process. These applications were frozen due to the R. Moss judgment, due to the Plaintiffs suit. If these frozen applications were delivered to the Corps, the applicants would start from ground zero. The federal process requires double the time to process with double the entities that must sign off on such a permit authorization.
As for the Plaintiffs - ignorance is bliss. Did they understand Florida has utilized our own wetland delineation methodology for over 20 years?! Do they understand that in bringing this suit and the SCOTUS decision in “Sackett v. EPA,” they are seemingly wanting to remove isolated wetlands from the State of Florida protections!? Isolated wetlands in our state play a very integral role in providing water quality and quantity to all inhabitants of our state. Did the Plaintiff not realize this? (WEL blog 4/25)
This denial will affect Florida economics.