Texas Supreme Court Hears Challenge Over Groundwater Permit Party Status and Whether 2017 Filing Is a New Application

The Supreme Court of Texas heard arguments over whether a landowner-advocate’s denial of party status and later amended permit filings in a groundwater-permitting matter are reviewable under Texas Water Code §36.251(a) and whether a 2017 filing counts as a new application that reopens public participation rights.

Counsel for Cockrell (unnamed in the transcript) told the court that “with groundwater being so crucial to the future of the Texas economy, respondents’ path to shutting out judicial review with permitting decisions fails for at least 3 reasons,” and pressed three lines of statutory and procedural argument: (1) §36.251(a) is a direct grant of jurisdiction for anyone “affected by and dissatisfied with any order”; (2) district local rules and the timing rules do not extinguish review when a district effectively denies party status by failing to act within a statutory period; and (3) the 2017 filing contained materially different terms (well locations, land area, management-zone boundaries) and therefore was…