WASHININGTON – Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt filed the legal documents to overturn the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, the New York Times reports. Suspending the WOTUS rule was one of the top campaign promises of President Donald Trump, who referred to it as “one of the worst examples of federal regulation.”
The rule would have been implemented soon after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that district courts had jurisdiction over the matter. On Wednesday, the agency rushed to finalize a two year postponement of the rule, which gives them time to write a new version that will likely have fewer regulations on how ranchers, real estate developers and farmers must treat waters that transverse their property into larger bodies of water.
“Today, EPA is taking action to reduce confusion and provide certainty to America’s farmers and ranchers,” said Pruitt in a statement. “The 2015 WOTUS rule developed by the Obama administration will not be applicable for the next two years, while we work through the process of providing long-term regulatory certainty across all 50 states about what waters are subject to federal regulation.”
The agency is likely to have a proposal of new water rules later this spring with plans to finalize those regulations this year. In writing new WOTUS rules, NACS urges the agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to look at how the rules would impact small businesses, including many fuel retailers, and the association supports a return to a pre-2015 definition of WOTUS.
On the heels of the EPA announcement, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said it would head a multi-state lawsuit to challenge the WOTUS delay. “Make no mistake: abandoning the Clean Water Rule will mean pollution, flooding, and harm to fish and wildlife in New York and across the country — undermining decades of work to protect and enhance our water resources,” he said in a statement reported in Politico. Connecticut, Washington, Hawaii, Vermont, Oregon and Massachusetts joined New York in the original litigation.