U.S. Backs Tennessee in Groundwater Fight with Mississippi

The Biden administration wants the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Mississippi’s ambitious legal effort to make Tennessee pay for alleged groundwater theft.

“A suit brought by one State against another must be dismissed unless the plaintiff State can establish a ground on which it may recover,” Acting Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar said in a brief last week. “Mississippi has failed to establish any ground on which it may recover here.”

Mississippi brought its original jurisdiction case to the Supreme Court in 2014, contesting a Memphis, Tenn., utility’s pumping of an aquifer in the region. Mississippi accused its neighbor to ...