THE OKLAHOMAN: Editorial: Federal water rule a threat to Oklahoma

THE Obama administration’s “Waters of the United States” rule is an overly broad and economically destructive proposal that several courts have found wanting. But the Trump administration’s effort to suspend the rule while it’s overhauled was recently stymied by a federal district court judge in South Carolina, creating regulatory uncertainty across the nation.
 
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is pushing the courts to rectify this situation, and he deserves credit for his swift response.
 
The WOTUS regulation, advanced in 2015, seeks to dramatically redefine “waters of the United States” under the federal Clean Water Act to include not only sitting bodies of water but any place with a “significant nexus” to bodies of water. In application, this means much typically dry land will be treated as a body of water subject to far stricter environmental regulations. The rule not only declared dry land to be wet based on high-water marks, but also when computer simulations can concoct a scenario where land might someday be flooded.
 
The Environmental Protection Agency’s own estimates showed the rule created roughly 4.6 million miles of new “waters,” far more than the 3.5 million miles impacted by prior law.
 
More than 30 states challenged the rule, and judicial review wasn’t kind to WOTUS.

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