Optimism justified by Trump’s action on U.S. water regulations
PRESIDENT Trump has ordered a rewrite of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Waters of the U.S.” rule. That’s a victory for economic growth, including in Oklahoma.
The Obama-era EPA sought to dramatically redefine “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act to include not only sitting bodies of water but any water with a “significant nexus” to bodies of water. This meant normally dry land could be subject to far stricter environmental regulation.
The proposed rule declared that normally dry land could be a “tributary” based solely on high-water marks, even when no water marks were physically determined to exist but were instead only the projection of computer programs.
The EPA’s own estimates showed the rule would generate roughly 4.6 million miles of new “waters” subject to regulation, far more than the 3.5 million miles under existing law.
Officials in Kansas estimated the rule would expand federal jurisdictional stream miles in that state from 32,000 miles to 134,000. Pioneers referred to Kansas as part of the “Great American Desert.” But WOTUS would have practically made Kansas into a Great Lakes state.
Ronald Bailey, writing for the libertarian Reason magazine, noted the regulation would have forced numerous property owners to seek new federal permits, a process that “could take years and cost thousands of dollars.”
The rule has already been challenged in court by 32 states and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the rule in October.
“The EPA’s so-called ‘Waters of the United States’ rule is one of the worst examples of federal regulation, and it has truly run amok, and is one of the rules most strongly opposed by farmers, ranchers and agricultural workers all across our land,” Trump said before signing the executive order directing the EPA to reopen the WOTUS rulemaking process.
Notably, the president’s order directs the EPA to use the standards set out in former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s plurality opinion in a 2006 case. Scalia declared the “only plausible interpretation” of the phrase “the waters of the United States” was one that included “only those relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water” that, in plain English, are referred to as streams, oceans, rivers and lakes.
Outside the most extreme environmental groups, Trump’s action has been widely praised.
Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Cheyenne, who is both dean of Oklahoma’s congressional delegation and a farmer, noted that WOTUS “has created widespread uncertainty for many of the folks in the agriculture, energy and construction sectors across our country. This far-reaching and arbitrary regulation was less about protecting our country’s natural resources and more about expanding federal control over private landowners.”
Those cheering Trump’s action aren’t confined to the most conservative Republican precincts. In 2015, three U.S.Senate Democrats and 24 Democratic House members came out against WOTUS.
The stock market has boomed since Trump’s election, a signal investors believe his policies will foster greater economic growth. Trump’s insistence on using common-sense logic and reason in drafting regulations like WOTUS suggests such optimism is not misplaced.