The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Jurisdiction has ruled there will not be any consolidation of the various legal cases filed against the Waters of the U.S. The panel said, “The resolution of these actions will involve only very limited pretrial proceedings. Discovery, if any, will be minimal, as these cases will be decided on the administrative record. Centralization thus would require the transferee judge to navigate potentially uncharted waters with respect to law of the case.”
The Obama administration wanted the cases to be combined and sent to the District of Columbia federal court. There have been two rulings blocking the WOTUS rule – the first in North Dakota that covered 13 states and the most recent that blocked the rule nationwide.
