Regulatory overreach was a topic of debate in Washington D.C. this week regarding EPA and the implementation of the new WOTUS rule. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan told a House panel that the EPA is working in tandem with the Army Corps of Engineers in implementing the revised Waters of the U.S. or WOTUS rule to comply with last year’s Supreme Court ruling.
Regan says the Army Corps resumed WOTUS determinations after the EPA revised its heavily criticized earlier rule. Last May in a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court rejected EPA’s ‘significant nexus test’ in favor of an ‘observable surface connection’ to navigable water to define a wetland.
The American Farm Bureau argued that EPA’s final rule was vague in defining ditches or other farm features that fill with water only sometimes. Using a portion of a much earlier Supreme Court ruling to preserve regulatory intent.
