6th Circuit Court of Appeals Exempts Army Corp of Engineers Memos

This week, the panel from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals which has been hearing the challenges to the EPA’s Water of the U.S. rule ruled this week that it will not consider several Army Corps of Engineers memos that revealed concerns regarding the W.O.T.US rule and the rulemaking process. The memos, which were released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last year, describe the Corps’ opinion that the W.O.T.U.S. documents “contain numerous inappropriate assumptions with no connection to the data provided, misapplied data, analytical deficiencies and logical inconsistences.” The ruling that these memos will not be used in the court’s decision is a challenge to states and companies seeking to overturn the burdensome regulation.