A federal district judge has rejected a challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Supreme Court-inspired narrowing of its definition of regulated “waters of the United States,” denying a North Carolina landowner’s bid to block the EPA from regulating wetlands on his property.

U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle’s rejection last week of Robert White’s request for a preliminary injunction followed the agency’s regulatory response to the high court’s 2023 ruling in Sackett v. EPA that the statutory definition of ‘waters of the United States’ was limited to wetlands that directly adjoin rivers, lakes, and other navigable bodies of water.