Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and 24 other states, including Nebraska, filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in support of the Port of Tacoma’s appeal of a U.S. Circuit Court decision that upheld a citizen’s ability to sue people for violating the Clean Court. The law of water.

“We must not allow unelected green activists to weaponize lawsuits to force vigilante mandates, hurt farmers or threaten cities that work hard to keep drinking water clean,” Bird said in a press release.

The original case involved a Washington citizen-led environmental group, the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, which sued the Port of Tacoma and its tenants for failing to implement stormwater controls in accordance with state-issued pollutant discharge permits.

In June 2024, the 9th US Circuit Court ruled in favor of the environmental group. Of the court opinion said “although (state polluter permits) exceeded the requirements of federal regulations, they were enforceable in a citizen suit.”

Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote that without existing precedent, “private citizens such as the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance would not have standing to sue” in such cases.

The precedent that set the court’s opinion was a 1995 citizen lawsuit alleging that the city of Portland had violated the Clean Water Act. O’Scannlain said in his concurring statement that the precedent “continues to expand the status of citizens in a way that Congress never intended.”

Sean Dixon, executive director of Puget Soundkeeper, said in a statement at the time of the decision that it “closes the book on a proposed environmental loophole” and will help protect clean water in his state of Washington.

The recently submitted one short by Bird and other states claims the decision “interferes with (the state’s) authority over water resources” and “undermines” the state’s environmental efforts.

This interference, the brief argues, disrupts the Clean Water Act’s “cooperative federalism” approach, which allowed states to “tailor” federal programs to local needs.

The precedent set by the Port of Tacoma case would eliminate a state’s flexibility and ability to experiment with implementing different conservation laws that prioritize what is most important to a given state’s citizens, according to the brief.

A news release from Bird’s office called the citizens’ lawsuits “politically charged” and said taxpayers would be “on the hook” to pay for the government to defend itself against “awakened green activists.”

Bird also argued that the new interpretation could lead activists to “weaponize” the Waters of the United States rule and try to enforce “radical” regulations on point sources by suing farmers and cities.

The brief urges the Supreme Court to overturn the 9th Circuit Court’s ruling.

“The states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and restore regulatory power to the states so that farmers and cities are not forced to choose between vigilante, costly mandates or defending against aggressive lawsuits,” the press release said. .

Co-signers of the amicus brief include attorneys general from: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Carolina Dakota , Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

This article first appeared in Iowa Capital Dispatcha Nebraska Examiner partner site in the State Newsroom network.