Clean Water

[kalm]

You shouldn't be able to do whatever the hell you'd like with our water. Go EPA!

“We have two hearings going on here,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. “One on a mythical rule that would regulate any place

where water collects or most any water or any wet place, and doesn’t consult with states and local officials; and then this actual rule, which is in the middle of a very robust, Administrative Procedures Act process with millions of comments and a very active rule-making.”

The EPA proposed the Waters of the United States regulation in March, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, in what they said was an attempt to clarify which streams, ponds, wetlands and other bodies of water fall under federal jurisdiction in the Clean Water Act.

A pair of Supreme Court hearings in recent years made it unclear, and the agencies said that their rule would not only add certainty, but in fact reduce federal jurisdiction.

“We can reduce confusion and transaction costs for the regulated community and the agencies as we move forward with the final rule,” EPA head Gina McCarthy said at the hearing.

Republicans weren’t buying it.

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