If someone asked you what the single worst, most egregious example of government overreach was, what would you say? The death tax? Emissions standards on cars? Livestock trucking rules? Excessive workplace safety requirements? While those are all good examples, they pale in comparison to the Biden administration’s most recent actions on “waters of the United States” or WOTUS.
For those who don’t know, WOTUS dictates which waters are federally regulated under the Clean Water Act. During the Obama administration, a definition was released that empowered federal bureaucrats to place every single body of water—every ditch, puddle, and stream—under federal regulation. That means permits could be required for activities such as removing debris and vegetation from a ditch, applying pesticides, rotating types of crops, or building a fence or pond. Permitting can be a costly and time-consuming process that requires small businesses to hire attorneys and environmental consultants they simply cannot afford. To put an end to this overreach, the Trump administration finalized the Navigable Waters Protection rule which revised the definition of WOTUS and brought back a balance between federal and state jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. Unfortunately, this rule was quickly pulled back by the Biden administration.
And just a couple of weeks ago, right before New Year’s Eve, the Biden Administration issued a final rule creating yet another definition of WOTUS. This is the fourth time since 2015 the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers have attempted to define WOTUS! Not to mention, it completely discounts a pending Supreme Court decision on whether the agencies have gone beyond their legal authority on this ruling in the first place. For decades, confusion, regulatory uncertainly, and litigation have surrounded the scope of federal authority over our nation’s waters, and this final rule continues that uncertainty for rural Americans.
Let me be clear: WOTUS isn’t just a logistical nightmare that’s plagued the landowners, businesses, farmers, ranchers, and rural communities in Central Washington and across the country for years. It controls what people can build or plant in or around streams, ponds, irrigation ditches in the middle of crop land, and stormwater runoff areas, giving the EPA unprecedented say over what people can or can’t do with their own land, and calls into question whether farmers could even begin to work their land. This impacts our food supply, our housing industry, and many other sectors that have already been decimated by the Biden administration’s excessive policies.
I’m a third-generation hop and grape farmer from Washington State. Providing good stewardship for our environment has always been important to me and my neighbors. Our nation’s agricultural community has voluntarily innovated over the years, finding ways to use significantly less pesticides and fertilizers to grow even more food. That’s why it’s disheartening to see regulations like the WOTUS rule coming out of the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers which would impose tighter controls over waters Congress never intended them to regulate.
There is a silver lining here, though. The upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case, Sackett v. EPA, could set forth the proper test for determining the definition of WOTUS under the Clean Water Act. I led my Western Caucus colleagues in submitting an amicus brief which outlines the importance of environmental federalism and how a poorly defined Clean Water Act hinders environmental protection by interfering with more effective state, local, and private action. As the brief states, “Simply put, the incredible ecological variety throughout the nation makes one-size-fits-all national environmental regulation unworkable,” and “environmental protection and conservation remain core, traditional areas of state and local regulation.”
Rural communities in the West and across the country like Central Washington are dedicated to clean water and do not deserve to be punished by the continued legal uncertainty this new final rule promulgates. I have consistently called on the Administration to provide regulatory certainty for farmers, ranchers, small businesses, and landowners, and this new final rule does the opposite. While I am disappointed in this administration’s dismissal of our rural communities, I will continue to fight for our needs so long as I remain in Congress, and I look forward to the certainty only the Supreme Court seems willing to provide.
