Yesterday the Senate also voted on The Federal Water Quality Protection Act that would require the (EPA) to start over with the rulemaking for the WOTUS rule.
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Senator Jodi Ernst of Iowa has filed another measure to invalidate the Clean Water Rule under the Congressional Review Act. While I understand that the White House has threatened to veto this resolution if it reaches the President’s desk, it’s still important that a majority of Congress voice their opposition to the EPA rule as federal courts continue to weigh its legality. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) voting with all Republicans present except Sen.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Corps of Engineers (Corps) recently finalized a controversial regulation known as the Waters of the U.S. Clean Water Rule.
Earlier this week, Senate Democrats blocked a bill that would have forced the Obama administration to rewrite the regulation. “He really had a great effort to inject Hoosier common sense into a rule that is lacking much of that”. Current exemptions from the Clean Water Act for farming practices, including plowing, seeding and the movement of livestock, among other things, will continue. The proposed regulation, enshrined in the CWR, was rolled out by EPA and USACE last May (see Shale Daily, May 27).
“We have the chance to restore this portion of the Clean Water Act and to lose that opportunity I think would be a negative”, said Holly Neill with the Missouri Stream Team Watershed Coalition.
In a statement of administration policy, the White House said the WOTUS rule was “essential to ensure clean water for future generations”.
Hoeven had an amendment placed in the appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior and EPA that would defund the rule.
“As the West Virginia Coal Association points out, this WOTUS rule would trigger an “alphabet soup of statutes, regulatory programs and federal regulatory agencies” involved in traditionally non-regulated activities”. The House of Representatives must now pass the resolution before it can be sent to the President.
On Wednesday Blunt lumped the fight over that rule – which he said would have a huge effect on St. Louis because of the large financial services industry in the region – with the battles over water and air.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled twice in six years (Rapanos v. United States and Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers) that “CWA jurisdiction over private lands is limited”, according to Case Western Reserve Law Professor Jonathan Adler.
There is no timeframe yet for moving the Senate bill to the floor.
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“If the EPA gets its way, federal bureaucrats would expand their regulatory authority to almost every stream and pond in the United States”, said Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
