In the beginning of September, U.S. District Judge David Norton, of the District of South Carolina, reinstated former-President Obama's 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) ruling, making it effective in 26 states (now 23 due to a separate ruling.)

The list of states that judge Norton revived the WOTUS act for are as follows: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

The ruling pertained specifically to a claim made by the Southern Environmental Law Center, which stated that the EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to seek public comment on the rule to delay WOTUS implementation.

According to farmfeatures.com, the official court statement reads, "The court reiterates that the issue currently before the court is not the merits of the WOTUS rule but the procedure by which the [EPA] Suspension Rule was implemented."