The Obama administration issued controversial new rules Wednesday granting the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate streams and wetlands critical to public health, prompting congressional critics to decry the move as an authoritarian power grab.
The Clean Water Rule, drafted by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, clarifies ambiguities in the Clean Water Act to "clearly protect from pollution and degradation," extending protections to all tributaries showing signs of flowing water. "For the water in the rivers and lakes in our communities that flow to our drinking water to be clean, the streams and wetlands that feed them need to be clean too," EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said. The rules would help roughly 117 million Americans who obtain drinking water from streams that weren't clearly protected before.
"We're finalizing a clean water rule to protect the streams and the wetlands that one in three Americans rely on for drinking water. And we're doing that without creating any new permitting requirements and maintaining all previous exemptions and exclusions," McCarthy told reporters Wednesday, according to The Washington Times.
"This rule will make it easier to identify protected waters and will make those protections consistent with the law as well as the latest peer-reviewed science. This rule is based on science," she said.
The new rules were praised by environmental groups, including Sierra Club's Executive Director Michael Brune, who said, "We think this is an easy decision for anyone who is not in the pocket of big polluters," the Los Angeles Times reported.
But the regulations are largely opposed by farm groups, land developers and some in Congress, who argue the rules give unprecedented authority to federal regulators, and could potentially make every stream, ditch and possibly even puddle on private land subject to federal oversight.
Earlier this month, the House voted to block the rules, and the Senate is expected to act soon as well, perhaps attempting to defund the rules through the appropriations process, according to CNN.
If the regulations can survive critics in Congress who have vowed to block them and other opponents who say they are planning litigation to challenge provisions, they are set to take effect 60 days after publication.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, released a highly critical statement Wednesday:
"The administration's decree to unilaterally expand federal authority is a raw and tyrannical power grab that will crush jobs," he said.
Thirty governors and government leaders rejected the EPA's rule, according to Boehner, Fox News reported.
"These leaders know firsthand that the rule is being shoved down the throats of hardworking people with no input, and places landowners, small businesses, farmers, and manufacturers on the road to a regulatory and economic hell," Boehner's statement reads.
McCarthy, however, says the new powers would "not interfere with private property rights or address land use."
"This rule is about clarification, and in fact, we're adding exclusions for features like artificial lakes and ponds, water-filled depressions from constructions and grass swales," McCarthy said. "It does not regulate any ditches unless they function as tributaries. It does not apply to groundwater or shallow subsurface water, copper tile drains or change policy on irrigation or water transfer."
