Biden Administration will reimpose disastrous “WOTUS” water rule

The biggest power grab in the 50-year history of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was significantly blunted in April 2020, when the Trump administration – to the relief of rural communities across the country — rolled back the Obama-era “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule and replaced it with the “Navigable Waters Protection Rule” (NWPR).

That respite, however, was short-lived. On June 9, EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced, to the surprise of no one, that the Biden administration was preparing to turn up the heat on farmers, ranchers, fruit growers, and anyone else owning land Washington bureaucrats determine poses a threat to the nation’s waterways.

“After reviewing the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, as directed by President Biden, the EPA and the Department of the Army have determined that this rule is leading to significant environmental degradation,” Regan said.

This means that EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which share jurisdiction over bodies of water under the Clean Water Act (CWA), will scrap the Trump rule and put in its place a version of the 2015 Obama rule that imposed federal zoning on millions of acres of rural land. A complete return to the Obama WOTUS rule is impossible, because two federal courts – one in Texas and one in Georgia – struck down two of its sections as unconstitutional.

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