By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves is leading an effort in support of a lawsuit challenging the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate waters on private land.
Graves, the top Republican on the House Transportations and Infrastructure Committee, accuses the Biden Administration of exceeding its authority under the Clean Water Act when it instructed the EPA to again enact the “waters of the United States” rule.
“What’s happened is, the EPA, and I’ll throw the Corps of Engineers in there as well, are using any ecological connection whatsoever between land and nearby water as a pretext for intrusive planning and they’re basically just taking over the way people can use their land and with full authority,” Graves tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
An Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, has challenged an EPA ruling that prohibits them from building on a plot of land the federal government contends is on wetlands as defined by the Clean Water Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit backed the EPA.
Graves and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, are leading Republican support of the couple’s case.
“We go back to the states should retain their traditional role as the primary regulators of land and water resources,” according to Graves. “This federal takeover is just wrong. We need to reaffirm what the proper role of government is and ensure that the EPA and the court don’t overstep their bounds.”
Graves accuses the Biden Administration of resurrecting the Waters of the United States rule that became so contentious during the Obama Administration. Graves contends Congress never intended the EPA to go beyond regulating “navigable waters” and allowed the states broad powers to regulate waterways within their borders.
“There’s select language in there that specifically says that the states are the ones that should regulate the land and the water and very limited jurisdiction when it comes to the federal government,” Graves says. “And so, the fact that the Supreme Court took it up is very, very telling and I hope they define, once and for all, what the state’s role and what the federal government’s role is and I see the federal government is way overreaching their bounds.”