REASON: Are Dry Stream Beds Navigable Waters of the United States?
The Waters of the United States rule, passed by administrative fiat in June 2015, gave the federal government jurisdiction over nearly every river, lake, creek, estuary, pond, swamp, prairie pothole, irrigation ditch, and intermittent rivulet in the U.S. It’s a regulation that can force a rancher to spend $40,000 trying to get permission to grade a road through a dry wash that carries water only during occasional summer rainstorms—and then give up rather than pour more resources into the fight. After the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the rule, 33 states and more than 70 private sector organizations immediately challenged it in the courts for being too broad. In October 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a nationwide stay on implementing the regulation.
