Free Republic

President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced this week it is poised to reverse former President Donald Trump’s Navigable Waters Protection Act that helped farmers and ranchers avoid penalties based on arbitrary definitions of navigable waters that could apply to rainwater puddles, seasonal ponds, and other natural water formations. DTN covered the reaction to the EPA’s move: The Biden EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a news release Wednesday the Trump rule has led to a degradation in protection of waters. The agencies asked a federal court to remand the Trump rule, to allow for...

Appeals court panel says interstate haulers are not exempt from AB 5 law. Interstate truckers could soon come under California’s highly restrictive independent contractor law because of a recent federal appeals court decision. A three-judge panel for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 that a federal law called the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) does not preclude application of the state’s AB 5 contractor law to trucking companies operating in interstate commerce. In early 2020, before the new law went into effect, a federal district court judge granted an injunction barring the state from enforcing it...

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Massachusetts authorities to allow gun shops to reopen after the governor deemed them non-essential businesses that needed to close to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock in Boston ruled that the restrictions ordered by Republican Governor Charlie Baker in response to the pandemic imposed an “improper burden” on the constitutional rights of citizens seeking to possess firearms. Baker imposed the restrictions through executive orders issued beginning in mid-March that, like those adopted in other states, forced the closure of an array of brick-and-mortar businesses in response to the...