Copyright: William Warner
NMHC is a founding member of the Waters Advocacy Coalition (WAC), which sent a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Feb. 3, 2014. The letter reiterates the coalition’s objections to an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rule that would expand the definition of waters subject to federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.
The WAC letter charges that EPA failed to follow certain regulatory requirements, relied on a flawed economic analysis in developing the proposed rule, and has not conducted a sufficiently rigorous peer-reviewed scientific inquiry. WAC urges OMB to return to the proposed rulemaking and require the agency to correct the deficiencies.
EPA’s intended revisions to the Clean Water Act are so overly broad that artificial ponds used to store rainwater to prevent runoff would be federally regulated as would water-filled depressions such as tire ruts in land outside of construction sites. These examples may seem far-fetched, but they are not.