Posted on 11/18/2021 3:20:40 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration took action Thursday to restore federal protections for hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, undoing a Trump-era rule that was considered one of that administration’s hallmark environmental rollbacks.
At issue is a regulation sometimes referred to as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, that defines the types of waterways qualifying for federal protection under the Clean Water Act. The regulation has long been a point of contention among environmental groups, farmers, homebuilders, lawmakers and the courts.
The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army reinstates a rule in place before 2015 while the Biden administration arrives at its own, which is expected to be next year.
The administration had said in June that it planned to repeal the Trump-era water rule and issue new regulations defining which waterways are federally protected under the Clean Water Act. In August, a federal judge in Arizona threw out the Trump water rule and restored a 1986 standard. It was broader in scope than the Trump rule but narrower than what was established by the Obama administration, which brought federal protections to nearly 60% of the nation’s waterways.
The Trump-era rule was long sought by builders, oil and gas developers, farmers and others who complained about the federal overreach of Obama administration restrictions that they said stretched into gullies, creeks and ravines on farmland and other private property. They have frequently argued that broad federal protections for waterways make it difficult to do their work.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Here we go: Plowed fields as mountains.
Stay away from my gutters and downspouts....
All your waters are us...
Standby for pissing regulations...
If Biden is doing it you know it’s wrong.
Small streams and wetlands are not navigable waterways and thus do not fall under the definition of the waters of the United States, the wishes of bureaucrats and environmentalists not withstanding. That this is even debatable shows how corrupt our legal system has become.
They were doing puddles in our area. They went after a man made pond...it’s not a friggin’ wetland...it was for his horses.
The States have a separate program....at least our state does.
Everything is going back to the Obama disaster
Petrosius, most thinking, sane folks would agree with you.
However, this fake regime is neither thinking or sane.
This is how America dies.
The feds taking your land without paying...
How is that not navigable?
yay! the epa gets to do swat raids on kiddie pools again
have signs made. epa protected. put one next to every puddle you see
there are cases where the state and local approved but epa still fined
If it’s holding water, the Army Corps of Engineers owns the rights to it; we don’t anymore. I fought that battle here in PA, and they won. I wouldn’t chase that rainbow again.
“Stay away from my gutters and downspouts....”
Good thing we got a drainage system put in before SloJo did this, or our backyard would have been listed as an “intermittent wetlands” by his Brownshirts.
Goodbye private property rights.
I detest these people.
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