CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is praising the Trump administration’s decision to enact the Navigable Waters Protection Rule to replace the Obama-era Waters of the United States Rule, which Morrisey has characterized as a power grab.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced implementation of the new rule Jan. 23 in the second part of a two-step process. The first step repealed the Obama-era rule to give "renewed certainty to farmers and landowners by restoring the once longstanding, predictable and reasonable lines between waters subject to federal and state regulation," according to Morrisey's office.
“The Trump administration’s new rule will protect water quality while restoring the balance and certainty that our nation needs to prosper,” Morrisey said in a statement. “You cannot regulate a puddle as you do a river and doing so will never give us cleaner water, which is what we all want.
Morrisey
"The Obama-era approach would harm jobs and economic growth by taking jurisdiction from states and asserting federal authority over almost any body of water, including roadside ditches, short-lived streams and many other areas where water may flow only once every 100 years. The Trump rule strives to correct that, and our office is proud to support it.”
The finalization of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule is the end of a process supported by Morrisey, who led a 17-state coalition in favor of the Trump administration’s efforts.
The coalition’s public comment supported implementing the rule, saying it shows respect for the primary responsibility and right of states to regulate their own water resources and will correct flaws within the Obama-era regulation, which extended the authority of the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers far beyond what Congress intended and the Constitution permits.
Morrisey, who has fought the Obama-era WOTUS rule since it was issued, said that rule would have overstepped the agencies’ jurisdiction. As an example, his office said if a property owner wanted to use sand to fill a ditch that has not carried water in decades, the Obama-era rule could have subjected that person to fines and penalties for violation of the federal Clean Water Act.
The EPA's new regulations are viewed as less restrictive than those adopted under the Obama administration, eliminating many seasonal streams, small waterways and wetlands from federal oversight. The new rules also exclude most roadside and farm ditches, groundwater, farm and stock watering ponds and water bodies that form only when it rains.
Besides oceans and major rivers, waters under federal oversight would be limited to perennial and intermittent tributaries, some lakes and ponds and wetlands adjacent to federal waters. Property owners who want to change the landscape covered by the federal rules will have to apply for a permit.
