Surfrider Foundation v. The International Boundary and Water Commission United States Section

I. BACKGROUND

24 On June 25, 2020, the Parties filed a Joint Motion to Stay requesting that the court 25 stay this action and the related actions “while the United States Environmental Protection 26 Agency [(“EPA”)] . . . identifies and moves towards the construction of transboundary 27 28 pollution control infrastructure in Tijuana River Valley.” (Doc. No. 91 at 3). The Parties’ request was based on the enactment of the United States-Mexico-Canada Implementation Act (“USMCA”) on January 29, 2020, “which appropriated to the EPA $300 million for the construction of priority wastewater treatment works to address transboundary pollution in the Tijuana River Valley, and other areas of the border.” Id. at 5. At a June 2, 2020 meeting, the EPA announced it would launch a “roughly one-year public process” to evaluate the technical, environmental, and financial feasibility of various potential projects, the results of which would inform what projects would be constructed in the Tijuana River Valley using USMCA funds. Id. at 5-6. According to the Parties, the projects the EPA intended to study were “substantially similar in concept to those…