The never-ending legal fight over EPA’s wetlands jurisdiction and which are considered Waters of the U.S. is beginning its next chapter. That’s according to testimony at a recent Senate hearing. The Environmental Protection Agency’s vagueness in a final Waters of the U.S. rule intended to conform to the Supreme Court’s May decision in “Sackett versus the EPA” likely will lead to more lawsuits.
Former EPA Assistant Administrator for Enforcement Susan Bodine says the agency did end the “significant nexus” wetlands test from its original January rule.
A vagueness the American Farm Bureau complained last month will upend the point of two Supreme Court cases and decades of litigation by half the states and farm groups to end EPA wetlands uncertainty. Bodine says she agrees with that assessment.
That’s complicated by a patchwork of states, 27 of which won court freezes of EPA’s overturned January rule and now face a pre-2015 WOTUS interpretation. West Virginia Senator Shelly Moore Capito explains with a map.
The need for national consistency was the one thing Capito and Chair Tom Carper agreed on. Capito and Bodine agreed EPA’s final rule opened the door to more regulatory “overreach” and likely more lawsuits and another WOTUS rule.
