By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Agricultural groups remain opposed to an expansion of Environmental Protection Agency authority under the Clean Water Act.
The Biden Administration has resurrected the Waters of the United States rule which the Obama Administration failed to implement, unable to overcome legal challenges.
Missouri US Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican, asserts the Clean Water Act is clear: the EPA has jurisdiction only over navigable waters.
“The problem is that the EPA and other organizations under President Obama wanted to decide that navigable water was basically all the water. It was any water that could ever run into any water that could ever run into any water that could run into navigable water,” according to Blunt. “Again, where we live in Missouri, that means like every roadside ditch.”
The Biden Administration has picked up the proposal discarded during the Trump years.
Blunt isn’t happy to see its return.
“Certainly frustrating that it appears to be coming back,” Blunt says, “but certainly the good news was the Trump Administration did change it, did walk away from that ridiculous Waters of the US rule that the Obama Administration was pursuing.”
Blunt says the Waters of the United States rule would give the EPA jurisdiction over virtually all waters in Missouri, an expansion of its authority Blunt insists was never intended in the Clean Water Act.