Court Backs EPA Authority in Decades-Old Livestock Waste Rules

The Environmental Protection Agency’s further research justification for denying environmental groups’ petition to update decades-old livestock water pollution regulation was reasonable, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit maintained the agency has broad discretion in choosing how to allocate resources, and the EPA’s choice to form a stakeholder subcommittee and conduct studies to avoid prolonged Clean Water Act rulemaking was an appropriate use of authority, according to an unsigned opinion.

“Here, EPA has deemed it prudent to first seek information about how best to tackle the problem before directing resources toward …