McCaskill Joins Opponents of Water Rule: ‘EPA Needs to Go Back to the Drawing Board’
(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) says she plans to vote against a controversial Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that places seasonal streams, wetlands, water-filled ditches that “function like tributaries,” and any body of water with “a significant nexus” to a navigable waterway under the federal agency’s jurisdiction and protection.
EPA needs “to go back to the drawing board,” McCaskill told [1] the Springfield News-Leader, becoming the latest to join a short list of Democratic senators who oppose the Waters of the United States [2] final rule issued earlier this year by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a motion to proceed with legislation [3] introduced by Sen. John Barasso (R-WY) which would force the EPA to scrap the regulation and “write a reasonable rule to protect our navigable waterways” after consulting with local and state officials, Barasso said in a statement [4].
Several of McCaskill’s Democratic colleagues - Senators Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) – are co-sponsors of the bill.
Under the 1972 Clean Water Act, the EPA has authority to regulate “navigable” waters. However, according to a July 16th report [5] by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the final rule, which the committee called “a radical change from current law… asserts that all ephemeral streams are ‘waters of the United States’ as long as they have a bed, bank, and ordinary high water mark.’
“Despite the fact that there has been no statutory change in the definition of ‘navigable waters’ or ‘waters of the United States’ since 1972 and no regulatory change since 1993, the [EPA and Corps] have gradually asserted broader authority by expanding their interpretation of the term ‘waters of the United States’,” the committee report stated.
‘Water moves in a cycle that includes rainfall, the sheet flow of rain over land, infiltration into groundwater, and the movement of water through an aquifer, often over long periods of time,” the report continued. “If the water cycle was a basis for federal jurisdiction, all water could be regulated.”
Last month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction [6] halting implementation of the rule nationwide after a federal court in North Dakota blocked its enforcement in 13 states.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled twice in six years (Rapanos v. United States [7] and Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers [8]) that “CWA jurisdiction over private lands is limited,” according [9] to Case Western Reserve Law Professor Jonathan Adler.
Related: Gohmert to EPA Director: ‘You Want to Be in Charge of All the Waters of United States’ [10]
Related: Feds’ Diastrous New Water Rule: Not About Protecting Water, But Agencies’ Ability to Regulate [11]
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