Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 8/17/18

Which streams and wetlands are protected under the Clean Water Act? The answer depends on where you're standing. On Thursday, a U.S. District Court in South Carolina overturned the Trump administration's recent attempt to delay the Waters of the U.S. rule, saying that the Trump administration had failed to offer the public a proper opportunity to comment.

So, as of today, the 2015 rule is now officially on the books in 26 states — but not in the other 24 states where federal court injunctions are still in place.

Farm groups critical: Environmentalists like Jon Devine of the Natural Resources Defense Council called the decision a "sharp rebuke to the Trump administration." Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama-era rule, called on the administration "to take immediate steps to limit the impact of this dangerous court decision."

Will it hold? The Justice Department is reviewing the decision, a spokesman said, and both sides broadly expect an appeal. But the fate of the delay rule could ultimately become moot if a federal district court judge in Texas grants a nationwide injunction request pending from three states.

This is just the warm-up fight: The battle royale will be over the Trump administration's final rule to repeal WOTUS, and the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are expected to propose a replacement rule.

Geoff Gisler, the Southern Environmental Law Center attorney who brought the South Carolina case on behalf of local environmental groups, argued the court's decision has implications for that fight and "should give the agencies pause" as they move forward. "The agencies just aren't telling the public what they're doing," he argued. "What this decision said was you can't just have a comment period, it has to be a meaningful comment period."

You can see a map here, courtesy of DTN/Progressive Farmer, showing which states are now under the jurisdiction of the WOTUS rule.