WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) today criticized the Obama Administration for a new regulatory rule that would vastly expand federal Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction, pushing far beyond the limits of the law and the Constitution.
PLF is a leading litigator for property rights and balanced environmental regulations. PLF’s precedent-setting victories against CWA overreach include the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Rapanos v. United States, which prompted regulators to develop the new rule.
PLF Principal Attorney M. Reed Hopper, who successfully argued the Rapanos case at the Supreme Court, issued this statement on the new rule:
“The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have released a new rule that would vastly — and illegally — expand federal regulatory power under the Clean Water Act through a practically open-ended new definition of the term, ‘waters of the United States.’ Although government officials claim the rule does not enlarge their power, and is consistent with Supreme Court decisions, nothing could be further from the truth. In the 2006 case of Rapanos v. United States, for example, the Supreme Court held that the federal government could not regulate all ‘tributaries’ to navigable waterways, and reaffirmed that isolated water bodies are off-limits to federal regulators. But these are the very waters that the new rule purports to regulate.
“The new rule expands Clean Water Act regulatory power to an unprecedented extent — violating both the terms of the Act and the Constitution’s limits on federal authority, and undermining the rights and responsibilities of the states to control local land and water use.
“The new rule also introduces even more uncertainty into the regulatory scheme. It leaves all the previously ill-defined terms in place, like ‘adjacent,’ ‘wetland,’ and ‘discharge,’ while adding equally malleable terms such as ‘floodplain,’ ‘tributary,’ and ‘significant nexus.’ And it provides that federal officials can decide on a case-by-case basis whether any ‘other waters’ should be regulated.
“All this vagueness gives federal officials freedom to assert the broadest possible interpretation of their jurisdiction, thereby fostering an environment of uncertainty that undermines economic growth.”
About Pacific Legal Foundation
Donor-supported PLF (www.pacificlegal.org) is a watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, and balanced environmental regulations.
