New water rules drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are now in effect in most of the country — probably, maybe.

Authors of the rules wanted to bring greater clarity to federal regulation. Not so much, it turns out.

EPA and the Corps worked on the rule for a couple of years in the hopes of reconciling two separate Supreme Court decisions in cases involving the Clean Water Act. The object was to better define what constitutes “waters of the United States,” which the act gives the federal government authority to regulate.

Despite the government’s protest to the contrary, farm and ranch groups worried the feds would use the opportunity to expand their authority over “waters,” and therefore adjacent lands, not previously subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act. Such a designation could have profound and expensive consequences for landowners.

Twenty-eight states asked the EPA and Corps to delay implementation of the rules, arguing that the agencies had failed to follow proper procedure in formulating the rule, and that the rule trampled state sovereignty by regulating lands previously regulated by them.

The attorney general of North Dakota — joined by Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, South Dakota and Wyoming — filed suit. On Aug. 27, North Dakota U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson granted a preliminary injunction delaying the rule’s implementation.

In his ruling, Erickson said the states were likely to succeed on the merits because the EPA had adopted an “exceptionally expansive” regulatory scheme, allowing the EPA to regulate “waters that do not bear any effect on the ‘chemical, physical and biological integrity’ of any navigable-in-fact water.”

The EPA asserts the injunction only applies to the 13 states and that the new rule went into effect in the other 37 states as scheduled, 60 days after it was published. It points out that two other district courts rejected similar arguments made in suits brought by other states and farm groups.

Plaintiffs have asked Erickson to define the extent of his ruling. Appeals will follow. So much for clarity.

What is clear is that politics has played a big role in the case. All of the states that opposed the rule in court are run by Republicans. So, the rule does not today apply in Idaho,

The Democrats who run Washington, Oregon and California — now firmly under the EPA’s thumb — are happy with the rule, and did not join any of the lawsuits. In fact, Oregon and Washington have intervened with other Democratic states on the side of the EPA.

They should have at least consulted the Army Corps of Engineers, which wrote a scathing email to EPA officials prior to the release of the final draft. Unhappy with the way EPA wrote the document, the Corps determined the rule would not withstand a court challenge.

We hope so.