WASHINGTON—Today, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson joined EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as Administrator Zeldin and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle released a new proposed definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act, delivering certainty and clarity to America’s farmers, ranchers, and landowners. Highlights from Congressman Simpson’s remarks are available below.

Watch the full press conference here.

On the WOTUS Proposal Announcement:

“I’d like to thank Administrator Zeldin, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, and the staff of the EPA’s water division – this is something that has been going on for a long time. I’d also just like to throw this out there…The Sackett decision actually came out of Idaho. I’m just saying! It was in Priest Lake, Idaho, a place where my family goes every year, but that was an important decision.”

“As Chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Committee and former Chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Committee, I’ve always added language in appropriations bills to make sure that we’ve defunded the enforcement of the WOTUS rule that had been written and rewritten and rewritten…As you all know, the Supreme Court said we need to make sense of this rule…I’ve always added language [in these bills] that said the EPA and the Army Corps need to rewrite this rule so that ranchers, farmers, businesses, and state governments have certainty and predictability.”

“It’s not because we don’t want clean water or clean air, we want that as much as everybody else does, but we need some certainty, and that’s why I always added that language…But we would always have this debate in committee because someone would try to strike that language, and they would pretend that we were against clean water. Their assumption was that if the EPA and the federal government did not regulate the “waters of the United States” –  being every drop of water that is in the United States – then it was unregulated. That’s not true. If it’s not regulated by the EPA, that means the states regulate the water, and I will tell you that nobody cares more about having clean water in Idaho than the State of Idaho and the citizens…This is why we need a clear definition.”