With bipartisan support, the Senate passed legislation to repeal a new Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule expanding federal permitting jurisdiction over wetlands and more construction projects.
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Tag: WOTUS
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The legal battle is on over the Biden administration’s new “waters of the U.S.” rule. Some major farm groups joined with the oil, real estate and construction sectors to file a lawsuit Thursday evening seeking to block implementation of the rule that redefines the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.
The lawsuit says the rule extends federal jurisdiction to a “staggering range of dry land and water features—whether large or small; permanent, intermittent, or ephemeral; flowing or stagnant; natural or manmade; interstate or intrastate; and no matter how remote from or lacking in a physical connection to actual navigable waters.”
The plaintiffs include the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Corn Growers Association, American Petroleum Institute, Associated General Contractors of America and the National Association of Realtors.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a case that could force the Biden administration to modify the new WOTUS rule.
The Biden administration's new “waters of the U.S.” rule came under immediate criticism from farm groups and their GOP allies in Congress, who said it could expand federal jurisdiction over agricultural lands.
View MoreEPA Administrator Michael Regan has said repeatedly he wants to craft a “durable” definition of “waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act — one informed by Supreme Court precedent and input from a variety of stakeholders.
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Representatives of state farm bureaus, as well as individual farmers and ranchers, spoke out in favor of keeping the Trump administration’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule in place at an online meeting today.
However, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers have already said they are concerned about the damaging effects of the 2020 rule on the nation's waters and are working towards developing a replacement.
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On June 9, 2021, EPA and the Department of the Army (the agencies) concluded their review of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule defining the term “waters of the United States” and announced their intention to initiate a new rulemaking process that restores the protections in place prior to the 2015 WOTUS implementation and develops a new rule to establish a durable definition of “waters of the United States.”
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