Southwest Washington’s 3rd District representative in Congress is vowing to continue her fight against the expansion of the Environmental Protection Agency water authority.
A Wednesday press release from Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler’s office calls the Obama Administration’s ruling to expand the EPA’s authority over U.S. waters a “power grab.”
The finalized ruling would allow the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to regulate ditches, ponds and other wet areas on private property as navigable waters, overturning 42 years of Clean Water Act policy, the release states.
“There appears to be no regard by those in Washington, D.C., for how this ‘Waters of the U.S.’ rule will affect property owners in every corner of the country, and certainly here in Southwest Washington,” Herrera Beutler said in the release. “Rather than listening to countless farmers, business and property owners, and citizens who have loudly shared the damage this rule will cause, the Administration has decided that it knows best.”
Herrera Beutler said she won’t stop fighting to restore the policy and said the rule allowing regulation of every pond and ditch is “government overreach at its worst.”
