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Home – Government Regulations News – One More Step Toward Ending WOTUS Overreach

One More Step Toward Ending WOTUS Overreach

For decades, farmers, homebuilders, small businesses, and property owners have struggled to determine whether ordinary features on their land qualify as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, under the Clean Water Act.

If a feature falls within the federal definition, landowners need a federal permit before building, farming, or making other ordinary changes that could affect it. The result can be months of delay and tens of thousands of dollars in permitting, consulting, legal, and mitigation costs.

Now, the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers have an opportunity to provide much-needed clarity to the “waters of the United States” definition in their supplemental proposal.

The Clean Water Act gives the federal government authority to regulate discharges into navigable waters, defined by the law as “waters of the United States.” But that phrase does not mean every pond, ditch, damp field, or parcel of land that holds water after heavy rain is subject to federal control.

In 2023, the Supreme Court made that limitation clear in Sackett v. EPA. The court ruled that federal jurisdiction covers “relatively permanent” bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, and streams. Wetlands fall under federal authority when they have a continuous surface connection with those waters, making it difficult to tell where the water ends and the wetland begins.

The EPA and Army........

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