INSIDE EPA: House GOP’s CWA Jurisdiction Rider May Hint At Scope Of New EPA Rule
GOP House members, including a former Trump energy adviser from the 2016 campaign, are floating a proposal to sharply narrow the scope of Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction as an amendment to the Farm Bill, a potential hint at EPA’s pending proposal to replace the Obama-era CWA policy that is prompting alarm from environmentalists.
The Farm Bill amendment, offered ahead of a House Rules Committee hearing on which amendments to bring for a vote by the chamber when it considers the bill this week, shares elements with the limited CWA test authored by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in a split high court decision from 2006. But it goes beyond that standard by barring regulators from setting any requirements for jurisdiction that require more precision than “the naked eye.”
A provision in the five-page rider would exclude from CWA jurisdiction any “water that requires the use of means beyond visual inspection by the naked eye, including aerial photographs, satellite imaging, or hydrological testing, to determine if it meets the definition” of a “water of the United States.”
