The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) was one of the organizations asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw their proposed new WOTUS rule. Last week, NPPC signed onto two sets of comments asking the EPA to withdraw it.
Submitted by the Waters Action Coalition (WAC), of which NPPC is a member, and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), the comments detail problems with the proposed regulation, which would replace the Trump-era Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR).
The group says the Biden administration’s proposed WOTUS rule “is essentially a renewed quest to claim jurisdiction eventually over all tributaries, all floodplain riparian area wetlands and open waters, and as many remaining wetlands and open waters in non-floodplain landscapes as possible.”
In the comments, the groups also argue that the proposed rule should be withdrawn because the U.S. Supreme Court in January agreed to hear a WOTUS case that challenges the central mechanism EPA proposes to use to expand its jurisdiction. Prior to the 2015 regulation, EPA’s jurisdiction over waterways – based on several Supreme Court decisions – included “navigable” waters and waters with a significant hydrologic connection to navigable waters.