During the Obama regime, busy body bureaucrats in the Environmental Protection Agency attempted to impose a rule that would give the federal government authority to literally lord over mud puddles and ditches that contained water, a massive overreach that essentially gave the EPA the power to govern over all private property, effectively demoting owners to taxpaying advisers on their own land.
That rule was tanked by President Donald Trump when he took office, but shortly before the first of the year, the Biden regime revived it, per Resist the Mainstream:
The EPA signed off on the revised definition of “Waters of the United States” on Dec. 29 while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed off on the revised definitions on Dec. 28.
The revised rules define what types of water bodies are protected under the Clean Water Act and were based on definitions that were put in place before 2015 during the Obama administration.
The Trump administration reversed course from the Obama administration, which looked for ways to expand federal protections of waterways.
Except, the purpose was never to "protect waterways" -- you don't designate mud puddles and creeks on private land as "waters of the United States." No, the objective was and remains to exert federal control over private property, which is about as unconstitutional as it gets.
"The Trump administration’s rule benefited property owners, including farmers, builders, and oil producers, who were concerned about feds regulating ravines and creeks on private property, like farms," the report stated. "The Trump-era rule was thrown out by U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Marquez, who said the regulations ignored that smaller waterways could affect the health of waterways they flow into."
When it comes to bad ideas from Democrats, they never really go away, they go dormant for a while, as Natural News reported in 2019:
The Obama Administration used both the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as weapons to steal property from individuals and to convert state land over to the ownership of an all-powerful federal government. Many would argue that this plot was influenced by the United Nation’s (U.N.) Agenda 21, which was sold under the guise of “sustainable development” of natural resources – an idea that Obama sympathized with.
Nearly a dozen states sued the Obama regime at the time, and a federal court found that they not only had grounds to sue, but that the rule was an unconstitutional land grab.
U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled at the time that Obama arrogantly disregarded the constitutional balance of powers between the states and the federal government.
“The court finds that both because of its combination with tributaries and the selection of over-broad geographic limits without showing a significant nexus, the adjacent waters definition in the WOTUS rule is unlawful under Justice Kennedy’s Rapanos opinion," she wrote.
“Most importantly,” Wood stated, “that significant increase in jurisdiction takes land and water falling traditionally under the states’ authority and transfers them to federal authority.”
She adds, “In light of this significant intrusion on traditional state authority, the CWA still contains the policy language of recognizing traditional state power in this area, and Congress has not made any clear or manifest statement to authorize intrusion into that traditional state power since Rapanos," she noted further.
It seems likely that Biden's implementation of the rule will meet similar resistance and a similar fate.
"Rural America doesn’t need yet another rule giving the federal government more power over farming and private property," Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) said in a statement last week, according to Fox Business. "The federal government shouldn’t have jurisdiction to regulate puddles, ditches, seasonal creeks or culverts. All this rule does is make it more difficult to grow food or build anything."
"This is a step in the wrong direction from the Biden administration and it infringes on the rights of Montana farmers, ranchers and landowners," added Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said in a statement last week. "This overreaching rule threatens Montana ag and natural resources and is unacceptable. I will continue to vigorously fight to protect Montanans from out-of-touch rules handed down from D.C. bureaucrats."
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