{"id":38250,"date":"2020-02-25T06:54:20","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T11:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=38250"},"modified":"2020-02-25T06:54:20","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T11:54:20","slug":"an-update-on-wotus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=38250","title":{"rendered":"An Update On “WOTUS”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Spectator<\/a> posted an article today updating the progress President Trump has made in undoing the “Waters of the United States (WOTUS)” rule put in place by the Obama administration. Under the guise of protecting the environment, the rule essentially gives the government control of your property if you have a mud puddle that shows up every Spring. The article notes that undoing something put in place by a federal bureaucracy is harder than reversing the direction of an aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

WOTUS represented one of the great power grabs in government history. By redefining \u201cwaters of the U.S.,\u201d Obama-era officials asserted federal authority (virtual ownership) over almost all water in the country \u2014 not only large lakes, rivers, and oceans, but also streams, creeks, wetlands, ponds, parking lot puddles, and irrigation ditches. Nothing in the law justified such a broad sweep.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new rule, released this week, is unfortunately still much broader than the law justifies. The Clean Water Act<\/a>, which sought to control pollution of the nation\u2019s major waterways, contains the phrase \u201cwaters of the U.S.\u201d in 12 places. Of those, nine use the phrase \u201cnavigable waters of the U.S.,\u201d and the other three refer specifically to barges and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. \u201cNavigable waters\u201d were defined as \u201cwaters of the U.S.,\u201d meaning the terms are synonymous. There are no waters of the U.S. that are not navigable. Not in the law.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the new rule continues to assert federal jurisdiction over waters never intended by Congress. On the plus side, it includes a final definition of what are, and are not, waters of the United States. It specifically disclaims federal jurisdiction over farms, ranches, irrigation ditches, stock ponds, wastewater treatment systems, and rainwater runoff. But in addition to \u201cterritorial seas and navigable waters,\u201d the definition still includes \u201cperennial and intermittent tributaries to those waters,\u201d \u201ccertain lakes, ponds, and impoundments,\u201d and \u201cwetlands adjacent to jurisdictional waters.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

Vague definitions lead to abuses, which are far too common in recent years. Most recently, the prosecution of Jack LaPant, whose decision to plant wheat on his California farm \u2014 with full approval of the Agriculture Department \u2014 resulted in over $5 million in fines. It seems the Corps of Engineers considers topsoil a pollutant. That\u2019s about as nonsensical as an attempt by the EPA a few years ago to declare sunlight a pollutant. In LaPlant\u2019s case, the Corps missed a vitally important detail: Congress specifically exempted \u201cnormal farming activities\u201d from federal \u201cjurisdiction.\u201d That clearly includes planting wheat, especially on existing farms where wheat has been grown before.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We understand the natural instinct of all bureaucracies to seek more power. But like most farms, that one has no floating boats, and it is not \u201cnavigable water.\u201d The Trump administration inherited the case but has not dismissed it or stopped the prosecution. It turns out that turning the bureaucracy, despite orders from the admiral, is actually much harder than turning an aircraft carrier.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The above story illustrates why we need to re-elect President Trump. Hopefully the WOTUS rule can be revisited so that America’s ability to grow food to feed its people is not impacted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Spectator posted an article today updating the progress President Trump has made in undoing the “Waters of the United States (WOTUS)” rule put in place by the Obama administration. Under the guise of protecting the environment, the rule … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5014,94,9794,1290,135,7021,11002,10915,11596,1775],"class_list":["post-38250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-spectator","tag-environment","tag-federal-bureaucracy","tag-government","tag-obama-administration","tag-the-american-spectator","tag-trump-administration","tag-waters-of-the-united-states","tag-waters-of-the-united-states-wotus","tag-wetland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38251,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38250\/revisions\/38251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}