Posted on 06/10/2015 8:26:21 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A Senate committee voted along party lines Wednesday to overturn the Obama administration’s new regulation asserting control over small waterways like streams and wetlands.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), would repeal the waters of the United States rule, also known as the clean water rule, and give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) specific guidelines to re-write it in a way that Republicans find more acceptable.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed the bill by a vote of 11-9, with only Republicans supporting it.
Republicans complained that the rule released late last month by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act would extend federal control over large swaths of private or state-owned water and land, including puddles, dry creek beds, man-made ponds and many agricultural features.
In fact, the rule the Obama administration wrote is worse than what it proposed last year, and would cover nearly all water in the country, despite promises otherwise Barrasso said.
“This is legislation that will protect our nation’s navigable waterways and the streams and wetlands that help keep our navigable waters clean,” he said, calling his bill “bipartisan, pro-environmental protection, pro-small business legislation.”
Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) are among the cosponsors of the bill.
“It’s possible to have reasonable regulations to help preserve our waterways while still respecting the difference between state waters and federal waters,” Barrasso said.
If a waterway is regulated, the property owner might have to get federal approval for anything that harms or pollutes it.
While the Clean Water Act is focused on navigable waterways, the federal government has long recognized that some upstream waterways must also be protected.
The bill sets out specific waterways that cannot be regulated, like isolated ponds, and requires the EPA to consult with various state and local governments and small businesses when it rewrites the rule.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the committee’s chairman, said farmers in Oklahoma are more concerned about the EPA’s water rule than any other federal policy, since they fear it will subject them to red tape for basic agricultural practices like spraying pesticides or digging ditches.
“This bipartisan legislation would stop the final rule and make the EPA and the Corps of Engineers go back and redo it,” Inhofe said. “This time, they cannot avoid consultation with states and local governments, they will have to do a full economic analysis, including an unfunded mandates analysis, they will have to review the impacts on small businesses and small local government.”
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, accused Republicans of sponsoring “a back-door repeal of the Clean Water Act,” since it would remove significant areas that are under the law’s protection.
“Today, we’re considering legislation that would undermine one of our nation’s landmark laws, the Clean Water Act and roll back protections for the American people, their drinking water,” she said.
“When we weaken the Clean Water Act, as this bill will do, we’re putting the lives of our people in danger,” she continued.
Boxer and other Democrats proposed five amendments aimed at preserving parts of the regulation, including protections for drinking water, public health and the costs to states. All the amendments failed along party lines.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) voted against the bill, but he applauded some provisions of the bill.
“At the end of the day, some of the things that Sen. Barrasso has called for in his bill deserve support,” he said, pointing to protections for local communities and a mandate that the EPA publish maps on the rule’s reach.
EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia declined to weigh in on the bill.
But Obama administration officials have vehemently defended the rule and generally criticized attempts to weaken it.
“The only people with reason to oppose the rule are polluters who threaten our clean water,” top Obama adviser Brian Deese said in rolling out the regulation last month.
Damn, the Senate did something right?
Good to hear.
Good optics but...As long as Barry says the rule stays, the dems will make sure the rule stays. And the GOP knows this. Ergo, another dog and pony show.
Indeed, but is this a piece of legislation that needs to pass both houses and would be subject to filibuster or Presidential veto? Could Obama's phone and pen keep the draconian regulations going forward?
Obama will never sign it.
Then they need to override his veto.
Then they need to override his veto.
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They should .... but I don’t think they will/can.
Time will tell.
Personally, I think we’re running out of time .... will the country make it to the finish line (the end of Obama’s reign of terror) before he damages us to the point of no return.
Be that as it may, it’s moving along as it should - there’s always a chance to overturn a veto.
The EPA is hated and it’s hurting the economy.
That’s where the Democrats/UN want this to go.
I share your concerns. Do the agencies that are supposed to carry out the legislation have more power to enforce their regulations or does Congress, who passed the law? What is happening with these rogue agencies and bureaucrats is not what the founding fathers envisioned.
Incredible that all these fascist bills are churning around virtually unknown, hither and yon in the marble halls of DC government while the media and the know-nothing public feast avidly on juicy "rampant police brutality", the Great Escape and Jender-Bender morsels.
The Teflon president in the White Mosque has been catching breaks virtually every day for months and months, even years, now.....a never-ending series of bizarre events which distract the lumpen proletariat from concentrating on their own losses of freedom, economic assets and private property......not to mention their own rapidly-approaching demise as INDIVIDUALS with sacred rights derived from God.....and not from Omnipotent Government.
Leni
Not every puddle of water or creek bed is a navigable water way.
This rule is just another attempt to circumvent the law. The law says they can regulate “navigable waters”. The EPA has already tried this twice, and both times they have lost at SCOTUS. The law is above any rule, and when taken to court again, again they will lose. I would say to everyone, if it’s not navigable waters, ignore them.
Now follow up and defund the EPA
Navigable for what? A rubber ducky?
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