THE INTER-MOUNTAIN: Opinion: Protecting your backyard
Our office also remains actively involved in arguments to undo the Obama-era WOTUS rule, a regulation that, like the job-killing Power Plan, we stopped in its tracks.
That crucial victory blocks the federal government from using the Obama-era rule to take control over almost any body of water, such as isolated streams, dry creek beds, gravel pits, hundred-year floodplains and roadside ditches. That Obama-era rule tried to regulate your backyard ditch in a manner consistent with how the federal government regulates the Potomac, the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers.
It seems pretty obvious that “water” should not be defined in such a way that the federal government acts like a national zoning board.
There needs to be a sensible, predictable definition so that everyone knows when and if they will be subject to Clean Water Act jurisdiction.
