Pearce Praises Trump’s Efforts To “Rein In The EPA”

In imposing the Waters of the USA rule, the Obama administration’s EPA aimed to resolve decades of uncertainty over what waterways were subject to federal regulation and oversight.

In a statement Tuesday, NAHB said Trump’s executive order “is an important first step toward reworking the flawed regulation and moving toward a more sensible WOTUS rule”. The agencies finalized the rule in 2015, but it was blocked by a federal appeals court and faces further legal challenges. It vastly expanded federal jurisdiction over state waters, ‘ said a Trump administration official in a briefing to reporters about Trump’s impending order.

National Corn Growers Association (NCGA): “We appreciate the Trump Administration’s commitment to reducing regulatory burdens for America’s farmers and ranchers”, said NCGA President Wesley Spurlock.

“A few years ago the EPA decided that navigable waters can mean almost every puddle or every ditch on a farmer’s land or anywhere else that they decide. It was a massive power grab”.

“President Trump’s executive order to ditch the WOTUS rule is a welcome relief to farmers and ranchers across the country today”.

“Any effort to replace this illegal rule with common-sense regulations will be welcome and is sorely needed”, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said after Trump’s order. Covering 60 percent of USA waterways, it included smaller creeks, wetlands and other water bodies for protection under the Clean Water Act – but was met with resistance from property owners, farmers and others.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, warned that a rule reversal would threaten drinking water quality for millions of Americans.

While acknowledging the importance of protecting clean water, the executive order stated that it is in the nation’s interest to promote economic growth and minimize regulation. WOTUS would allow the EPA to determine which wetlands fall under federal clean water protections.

But environmental groups and congressional Democrats welcomed the regulation.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, which led the public opinion fight against the water rule, said it would have forced farmers to get expensive permits for common, day-to-day work like building fences, plowing fields, applying fertilizer and grazing cattle. The impending order also instructs the agencies to ask the attorney general to suspend litigation surrounding the rule while conducting the review. But Trump says the rule wasn’t fair, and according to NPR, it is now on hold after a stay by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump’s decision sets in motion a slow-moving regulatory process aimed at rewriting the rule over the next several years.