Trump EPA
to Dump ‘WOTUS’; Frees 247 Million Acres of Farmland, by Chriss Street, 6/28/17 Newport Beach, CA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday,
to the delight of rural America, that the Trump administration is moving to
rescind the Obama era’s “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) regulatory rule. WOTUS
gave the federal government effective authority over water use on 247 million
acres of American farmland.
EPA
Administrator Scott Pruitt, together with Secretary of the Army for Civil Works
Douglas Lamont, signed a proposed regulatory rescission of WOTUS. As soon as
the proposed rule change can be published in the Federal Register, under Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0203, the public will
have a 30-day
comment period to “review and revise” the
definition of “waters of the United States.”
The
EPA took to Twitter at #WOTUS to call its action a significant step to return power
to states and provide regulatory certainty to the nation’s farmers and
businesses. The EPA added that its decision is consistent with the Executive
Order signed by President Trump on February
28, aimed at “Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by
Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule.”
The
Obama administration’s WOTUS regulatory expansion cleverly redefined the term
“navigable waters” to include “intermittent streams.” Environmental activists
hailed the WOTUS’s expansion of federal jurisdiction over land and water use as
an essential common-sense-rule to protect water for wildlife and drinking water
supplies for 117 million Americans.
But
the American Farm Bureau Foundation warned that a plain-reading of WOTUS
meant that federal regulatory control could be asserted over any land surface
that had ever experienced rain flow, had been flooded, or had irrigation
ditches. Farmers argued that the federal regulatory redefinition could usurp
state control of water use for America’s entire 247,417,282 acres used in
row-crop cultivation.
The basis for federal jurisdiction over “navigable waters” lies in the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce
Clause [Article 1, Section 8], which
gives the federal government extensive authority to regulate interstate
commerce. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Gibbons v. Ogden (1824),
that federal law has precedence in licensing vessels that moved in and out of
U.S. ports.
The
Commerce Clause was expanded with the passage of the “Rivers
and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899,” which forbid
building any unauthorized obstruction to the nation’s “navigable waters” and
gave enforcement powers to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
President
Nixon tremendously expanded the Commerce Clause with the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972,
which was supposed to create a national policy that would protect
America’s public drinking water supply from contamination.
There
currently are 18 federal lawsuits in various U.S. District Courts and about 22
federal appeals court petitions in various districts over WOTUS. The U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued
a nationwide stay on October 9, 2015 against
WOTUS’s enforcement under the Clean Water Act. The case was quickly appealed
and the Supreme Court decided to take the case just days before the Trump
inauguration Day
California’s
U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy released the following statement: The Waters of the U.S.
rule was a ridiculous usurpation of power by the EPA—so ridiculous that
bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to overturn the rule last
year. The federal government has no right to regulate intermittent streams,
creeks, and ponds, especially when that water is on private property. The Trump
Administration’s decision today to withdraw this rule makes things right by
getting Washington out of what it had no right to be involved with in the first
place.
Republican
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) issued the following statement: The West
has finally won in the battle over the Obama administration’s WOTUS rule. This
regulation would have been a disaster for the West and rural communities across
the country, giving Washington near-total control over water resources. The
livelihoods of American farmers, ranchers, and entrepreneurs were at stake. I
applaud the Trump administration for siding with American jobs and rescinding
this harmful rule.
Read More Stories About:
Big Government, Breitbart
California, Environment, American
Farm Bureau Foundation, Commerce Clause, Constitution, Donald Trump, Environmental
Protection Agency, EPA, Executive Order, federal register, Gibbons v. Ogden, Paul Ryan, Rivers
and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, speaker
of the house, Supreme Court, Trump
Inauguration Day, Waters of the U.S., Waters
of the United States, WOTUS
Comments
Obama’s
Waters of US rule came from the UN as part of UN Agenda 21. Trump is now repealing all of these rules
that were based on the global warming scam.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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