Biden Administration’s Overreach on WOTUS Fails Rural America

By Congressman Mike Simpson

Washington, D.C. – Over the years, Idaho’s farmers, ranchers, and small businesses have sounded the alarm about efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to redefine what waters are regulated under the Clean Water Act.  While I support the goal of safeguarding a clean water supply for our nation, I can see this effort for what it is—an attempt to expand federal control over how landowners use their land.  Idaho’s economy depends on our agricultural community.  This is why I have long led the fight to beat back these egregious attempts at federal overreach.  As we face yet another effort by the Biden Administration to expand federal jurisdiction over water, I am once again working to ensure that Idaho’s property owners have the clear, consistent, and reasonable regulatory environment in which they can continue to thrive.

The issue of the federal government’s jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act has been confusing and controversial for years.  The mandates and federal authority of the Clean Water Act apply to “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS), but the law doesn’t clearly define that term.  Even Supreme Court rulings in the early 2000s couldn’t settle on one interpretation of WOTUS, creating uncertainty for the regulatory agencies and regulated public alike.

The Obama Administration took advantage of this lack of clarity to expand the definition of WOTUS—and thus the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act—to include non-navigable, intrastate waters.  This massive expansion of the federal government’s authority pushed federal regulation into places it had never been before, including irrigation canals, ponds, drainage ditches and water tanks.  Many of us in the West expressed deep alarm that the language could be broadly interpreted to include everything within a state, including groundwater.

I’ve fought against expansive WOTUS overreach since the beginning.  In addition to authoring language every year to prevent and block the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) from expanding their regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act and to withdraw the Obama Administration’s misguided WOTUS rule, I worked with the Trump Administration to rewrite the WOTUS rule so that it actually worked for rural America.  Deciding how water is used should be the responsibility of state and local officials who are familiar with the people and local issues, and the 2020 Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR) clearly outlined the jurisdiction of federal, state, and local authorities.  It recognized that states like Idaho have had agencies and systems in place for managing the environmental quality of their own waters for years. 

Unfortunately, under the Biden Administration, the EPA is again working to expand its authority under the Clean Water Act.  Less than a month ago they published a new rule that voids the NWPR and reverts back to the Obama Administration’s era of expansive federal regulation and greater uncertainty.  This decision smacks of politics.  Instead of solving the problem and offering the certainty that farmers and landowners need, the Biden Administration has instead acted to appease far-left environmentalists, not even waiting for the Supreme Court to issue a crucial opinion on Sackett v. EPA, a case currently pending before the Court that will directly impact this issue. 

Litigation and unpredictability have been the result of the federal government’s attempt to regulate our nation’s navigable waterways for years, and Idaho farmers and landowners have paid the price.  This new proposed rule is the fourth one in eight years.  This regulatory whiplash hurts rural communities, creates confusion for states like Idaho that already have strong state environmental regulatory agencies, and leaves important water rights for farmers and ranchers dangerously uncertain. 

The Clean Water Act was never intended to give the federal government the kind of unchecked power this new rule would provide, and it is Congress, not the Administration, that should provide the clarity needed on this issue.  To that end, last month 190 other House Republicans and I sent a letter expressing our strong opposition to the new rule, and most recently I joined over 150 of my colleagues in cosponsoring House Joint Resolution 27, which disapproves the Biden Administration’s flawed and burdensome WOTUS rule.  As chairman and senior member of the appropriations subcommittees that oversee the budgets of the EPA and the Corps, I will continue to use my role to ensure that the voices of farmers and ranchers are heard and that state authority is respected. 

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