The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today they will work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deliver on President’s Trump’s promise to review the definition of “Waters of the United States.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agencies will move quickly to ensure that a revised definition follows the law, reduces red-tape, cuts overall permitting costs, and lowers the cost of doing business in communities across the country while protecting the nation’s navigable waters from pollution.
EPA notes that given the U.S. Supreme Court’s watershed decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, it is time for them to finally address this issue once and for all in a way that provides American farmers, landowners, businesses, and states with clear and simplified direction.
EPA will start its review by expeditiously obtaining input from stakeholders who were sidelined during the previous administration. The agency will seek targeted information on the key challenges that Americans are facing. The agency will also undertake a rulemaking process to revise the 2023 definition of “waters of the United States” with a focus on clarity, simplicity and improvements that will stand the test of time.
After the EPA announcement, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Chief Counsel Mary-Thomas Hart issued the following statement:
“For years, NCBA has worked across the federal government – educating members of Congress, participating in agency rulemakings, and fighting for cattle producers in federal court – to secure a WOTUS definition that protects both our nation’s natural resources and Americans’ property rights. We are proud of the Trump Administration’s effort to further conform the WOTUS definition to the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA. Today’s guidance is an important step toward refocusing the Clean Water Act to its original purpose. NCBA thanks EPA Administrator Zeldin for his work to finally close a decades-long chapter of severe regulatory whiplash.”
To read more about this EPA announcement, click here.