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Friday, December 25, 2020 CapitalPress.com 9 Lawsuits: ‘It’s shaping up to be Obama’s third term’ Continued from Page 1 Time out? Glitzenstein said he anticipates the new administration will ask judges to pause lawsuits, while agencies reconsider policies. ”You can see a lot of judges being open to that,” he said. “Judges are very eager when they have the opportunity to not waste their time.” The Justice Department, how- ever, will have to be more artful than merely renouncing previ- ously argued positions, Glitzen- stein said. “Judges don’t like people com- ing in and saying, ‘We’re doing different things because we’re dif- ferent people,’” he said. “Process does matter.” ‘Obama’s third term’ So do elections, said Scott Yager, chief environmental coun- sel for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “It’s shaping up to be Obama’s third term,” he said. “The same people we had then are back now.” The Obama administration pro- duced the 2015 Clean Water Rule, redefining the Waters of the United States. The rule brought ditches and ponds thousands of feet from navigable waterways under the Clean Water Act. Trump dumped the rule in favor of the “Navigable Waters Protec- tion Rule,” reducing how far the federal rule reaches into fields and pastures. Blue states and environmental groups are suing to overturn the Trump rule. They also are suing to kill Trump’s reforms to the Endan- gered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. The cattlemen’s association, American Farm Bureau Federation and other agriculture groups have formally intervened in the suits, positioning themselves to defend Trump’s environmental policies, even if the Justice Department under Biden changes course. “It makes intervening way more important for agriculture,” said Eastern Washington attorney Toni Meacham, who represents the Washington Cattlemen’s Asso- ciation, intervenors in a lawsuit to defend Trump’s ESA reforms. “These lawsuits don’t just stop,” she said. “Now more than ever it’s going to be important for agriculture to retain the small gains it’s made.” The ESA, NEPA and WOTUS lawsuits are in districts courts, the bottom rung of the federal judi- ciary. The cases are a long way from the U.S. Supreme Court. Yager said he anticipates fight- ing in court to uphold the Trump rules for as long as possible, while also working with the Biden administration on writing new rules. “We want to make sure Trump policies are in place until there is an official change,” he said. Ever-flowing WOTUS Biden will inherit the WOTUS controversy under circumstances similar to those Trump faced when he took office. The Obama EPA finalized its definition in 2015, immediately igniting lawsuits from red states, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The dusky gopher frog in Louisiana was at the center of one of the major environmental lawsuits ar- gued during the Trump administration. Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Washington attorney Toni Mea- cham says the upcoming change in White House administrations makes farm and ranch groups’ intervention in lawsuits more important. and farm and industry groups. The Justice Department was fight- ing those suits when Trump took office. Six weeks into his presidency, Trump directed the Environmen- tal Protection Agency to review the 2015 rule. With respect to the ongoing lawsuits, Trump told the EPA to promptly notify the U.S. attorney general of the pending review and for him to do what “he deems appropriate.” Significantly, Trump also told the EPA to be guided by Justice Antonin Scalia’s 2006 opinion in Rapanos v. United States. The Rapanos case stemmed from landowners in Michigan fill- ing wetlands for a shopping mall and condominiums without a Clean Water Act permit. The Army Corp of Engineers sued the prop- erty owners. The landowners lost in district court and the court of appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court produced an usual 4-1-4 ruling, an indecisive outcome that Chief Justice John Roberts lamented as “unfortunate.” In Scalia’s view, the Michi- gan case was just an example of a Corps that was out of control. The Corps’ application of the Clean Water Act was so broad it extended to “dry washes in immense arid deserts,” he wrote. The act, according to Scalia, had a narrower definition of Waters of the United States. “They include streams, rivers, lakes, oceans — in short, relatively permanent, con- tinuously standing or flowing bod- ies of water.” Four justices signed the opin- ion. And four jus- tices signed a sharply different opinion by Justice John Paul Sevens. Scott Yager He said the court should defer to the Corps’ expertise in preventing water pollution. The justice in the middle of the ruling was Anthony Kennedy, who’s opinion has been the most consequential, even though no other justice signed it. Kennedy said he agreed more with Stevens than Scalia, but agreed with Scalia that the case should be sent back to the court of appeals. His reasoning was much different than Scalia’s, however. Borrowing a phrase from an earlier court opinion in a Clean Water Act case, Kennedy said the Corps should determine whether the filled-in wetlands had a “signif- icant nexus” to navigable waters. Scalia criticized Kennedy’s opinion for relying on a phrase not in the law. Nevertheless, fed- eral courts have held up Kennedy as the controlling opinion. As the Trump administration worked on remodeling WOTUS based on Scalia’s opinion, it was simultaneously defending in court an Obama rule that aligned more with Stevens’ opinion. The Justice Department didn’t completely abandon the Obama rule, but it turned into sort of a neutral party, telling federal judges in various jurisdictions that a review was underway and asking them to sit tight and not make any rulings. Some judges, however, didn’t wait. Federal district judges in Texas and Georgia in 2019 struck down the 2015 rule. The most thorough dismantling of the Obama rule was by Dis- trict Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in Southern Georgia. The rule went beyond Kenne- dy’s “significant nexus” test, Wood wrote. “The court is bound by Jus- tice Kennedy’s opinion.” Ten months after Wood’s rul- Fine: Farm was also fined $7,200 for not reporting the first worker’s death Continued from Page 1 In September, Health Secretary John Wiesman ordered more than 3,000 Gebbers employees to be tested for COVID-19. Less than 1% of the workforce tested positive, a low rate compared to the general population of Okanogan County. The farm cited the low rate to buttress its argu- ment that it sought to pro- tect workers by consulting with an infectious dis- ease specialist. The farm’s safety plan relied on iso- lating workers in groups of 42, rather than the state standard of 15. “The number (15) is not some magical number,” Philpott said. Gebbers’ alternative plan ran afoul of state reg- ulators as early as May. An H-2A worker complained that he was quarantined without access to water to drink or wash with. L&I initiated an inves- tigation May 28 and fined the farm $13,200 for vio- lations related to the use of bunk beds and not hav- ing barriers in kitchens and lavatories. L&I started another investigation in July after anonymous calls from workers. The first caller said someone had died of COVID-19 and that work- ers he lived with were not tested and sent to differ- ent cabins, according to an L&I. A second caller said he feared hundreds of work- ers were infected, includ- ing himself, and that he was worried he would die. The caller said the sick were not being treated, according to L&I. L&I ordered Gebbers on July 22 to come into com- pliance with state stan- dards. Agency investiga- tors returned unannounced daily to see whether the farm complied. Gebbers racked up its large fine over a 12-day period, July 16-27. On each day, a bus with a capacity of 42 passengers took 42 farmworkers to and from orchards. The work- ers were not 6 feet apart, according to L&I. The farm incurred an $84,000 fine for every day. Over the same 12 days, the farm violated rules by housing workers in bunk beds, according to L&I. The penalty for the housing violation was also $84,000 a day. Lesser violations rounded out the fine. L&I said the company didn’t keep toilet paper or have hand-washing stations in every field bathroom, and didn’t have physical barriers in a community kitchen. The farm also was fined $7,200 for not reporting the first worker’s death to L&I within eight hours. The worker died at a hospital, and the farm didn’t know of his death until several days later, Philpott said. ing, the Trump EPA finalized its WOTUS definition, prompting lawsuits across the country. Two days before the Trump rule went into effect, Judge Wil- liam Martinez in Denver on June 19, 2020, stayed the rule in Colo- rado. The rule is now in effect in the other 49 states. In his stay order, Martinez said that five Supreme Court jus- tices rejected Scalia’s opinion, but Trump took it, fleshed it out and made it the law of the land. “Rapanos forecloses this interpre- tation of the (Clean Water Act),” Martinez wrote. Future of WOTUS Yager, the lawyer for the cattle- men’s association, said he doubts the Biden administration can resus- citate Obama’s Clean Water Rule, not after the rulings against it. Yager said Obama veterans will have a chance to show they’ve learned from their mistakes and write a rule that “threads the nee- dle” between the Trump rule and the Obama rule. “I think we have a good shot at getting a resolution people can live with,” he said. Endangered species In Northern California federal court, 21 blue states are suing to overturn Trump’s ESA reforms. Twelve red states have intervened to defend the changes. Environmental groups filed a separate lawsuit in the same court. Farm and industry groups have joined in as intervenors. The Trump administration’s han- dling of the ESA case Weyerhae- user v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- vice illustrates how a White House can shift positions without repudiat- ing previous court arguments. During the Obama administra- tion, USFWS designated 1,544 acres owned or leased by the Wey- erhaeuser timber company near New Orleans as “critical habitat” for the dusky gopher frog. The frog, listed as endangered under the ESA, hasn’t been on the tree farm since 1965. Evenly spaced rows of trees block too much sun, so it’s no longer frog “habitat.” But if Weyerhaeuser burned some clearings, frogs could live there, so it was “critical habitat” — as in critical for recovery, the USFWS said. By the time Trump took office, Weyerhaeuser had lost in fed- eral district court and the court of appeals. While the case was wait- ing to be heard by the Supreme Court, the Trump administration proposed new rules for designat- ing critical habitat. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked the government lawyer argu- ing the case against Weyerhaeuser whether the company’s land would be critical habitat under the pending Trump rules. The lawyer said he thought that even under Trump’s proposal the tree farm would be critical habi- tat because the land held such great promise for frog conservation. In an 8-0 ruling, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court rul- ings, but not because of the pending Trump rule. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that for land to be “critical” habitat, it has to be habitat. “Adjectives modify nouns,” he wrote. The high court sent the case back to the appeals court. The Trump administration asked the appeals court to let USFWS reconsider its decision to designate Weyerhaeus- er’s tree farm as critical habitat. “Potential policy changes may influence the service’s analysis,” the Justice Department wrote. The appeals court sent the case back to where it started, in 2013, the District Court for Eastern Louisiana. All the parties, including Wey- erhaeuser, the Center for Biological Diversity and USFWS, soon agreed to settle the case. USFWS with- drew the “critical habitat” designa- tion from the tree farm, and every- one agreed the settlement didn’t set any precedent. NEPA revisions Seven months into his term, Trump signed an executive order calling for “discipline and account- ability” in federal environmental reviews. He was three years into his term before his administration announced NEPA reforms. The rule went into effect Sept. 14. Federal lawsuits to overturn the rule are pending in Virginia, New York and California. The lawsuit farthest along is before Judge James Jones in Vir- ginia. On Sept. 11, he denied a motion by environmental groups to issue a preliminary injunction to block the reforms from taking effect. Jones, a Clinton appointee, said he may need to hear expert testi- mony before deciding the rule’s legality. The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cat- tlemen’s Beef Association are among the groups that have inter- vened in the lawsuit. Yager said an early deci- sion in Virginia favorable to the Trump rule could at least delay its replacement. “It might slow down the Biden administration a bit,” Yager said. Chlorpyrifos: Buffer zones have been increased around sensitive sites and bodies of water Continued from Page 1 handle chlorpyrifos. In the past, unlicensed employees could spray if they were super- vised by someone who is licensed. Buffer zones have been increased around sensitive sites and bodies of water. For aerial applications or non-targeted air-blast sprayers, the buffer is 300 feet. For targeted air-blast sprayers, the buf- fer is 150 feet, and for other ground-based equipment, it is 60 feet. Sensitive sites include farmworker housing units, though not farm residences or non-residential agricultural buildings such as barns and livestock facilities. That is based on feedback from farm groups, Kachadoorian said. “There was some concern that they have control over their own properties, and that to actually put a buffer there would take away a lot of land when they could just basically leave,” she said. “So we allowed that particular option.” Farm residences are already covered by protections in the federal Application Exclusion Zone, part of the U.S. Agri- cultural Worker Protection Standard. Mixing and loading chlorpyrifos can only be done by licensed applicators or by those who successfully complete an ODA-approved training course after March 1, 2021. Farms will be required to keep and maintain records for three years after each application. Finally, after Dec. 31, 2023, it will become illegal to use or sell chlorpyrifos in the state except for cattle ear tags, seed treatment and granular formulations. “We believe that with our (protec- tive) measures, the phaseout of Decem- ber 2023 is appropriate,” Kachadoorian said. Jenny Dresler, a lobbyist for the Ore- gon Farm Bureau and Oregonians for Food and Shelter, said the groups are still reviewing the final rule, though it does not appear to identify proposed alternatives or provide public funding for research. “These are very significant restric- tions,” Dresler said. “We are going to be looking for an investment so grow- ers aren’t left without any tools down the road.” Kachadoorian said it is unlikely the state will dedicate any assistance from the general fund, especially when the legislature is dealing with the coronavi- rus pandemic and 2020 fire season. However, Oregon State Univer- sity did receive a $162,794 spe- cialty crop block grant from ODA ear- lier this year to study alternatives to chlorpyrifos. “We really intend to be meeting with other industries and find out what we can do to help them be able to grow their crops effectively,” Kachadoorian said.