Extra Time For States In Clean Water Act Match Unlikely To End

One of the many things I've never understood about soccer (football in the rest of the world) is that the referee can decide, or not, to add "extra time" at the end of the game to account for what she sees as unusual events.  That seemingly arbitrary rule comes to mind this morning in reading an EPA and Army Corps of Engineers memorandum giving the 50 States up to a year to provide the required certifications of about 40 Clean Water Act nationwide permits issued during the Trump Administration.

On the one hand, the "extra time" isn't surprising since EPAs has already said it intends to rescind and replace the Trump Administration regulations which gave rise to the permits. 

On the other hand, Mr. Aristotle tells us that nature abhors a vacuum so one is left to wonder how the Clean Water Act match is to be played during the year, or two, or more that it will take for EPA to "expeditiously" complete the rule making in which it is engaging, not to mention the litigation that is certain to ensue.    

Recent decisions out of the Federal Courts of Appeals on the left and right coasts make clear that while EPA may be willing to wait for its state "co-regulators" to implement the Clean Water Act, the courts are perfectly comfortable moving forward with their own interpretations of the Act in the meantime.

As perplexing as "extra time" is in soccer, it eventually ends.  There's no reason to believe that the same will be true of the regulatory untangling of the Gordian knot regarding the reach of the Clean Water Act.