THE LIMA NEWS: Opinion: Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine: “Farmers deserve a return to regulatory sanity”

Epitomizing the problem was the Obama EPA’s 2015 Waters of the United States Rule — a power grab that was also a water and land grab. It assumed that a federal regulatory agency, and not Congress or our Constitution, ought to be able to determine without limit what it should regulate. It so broadly expanded the jurisdiction of the federal government that it had to explicitly say that it didn’t mean to cover swimming pools!

Some of the WOTUS Rule was somewhat technical, so I will simplify it. The Obama EPA essentially asked: Is there or has there ever been any water on your land? If the answer was yes — even a puddle — then the federal government pretty much claimed the right to regulate it.

It has been an honor to help lead the fight to resist this power seizure. On the same day that the final WOTUS rule was published, I filed a Complaint alongside the Attorneys General from Michigan, and we promptly were joined by Tennessee. Overall, some 31 States sued to challenge the Rule. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, based right here in Ohio, saw the Rule for what it was and issued a nationwide injunction against its enforcement.

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Photo credit: Mike DeWine