Swamp Stomp

Volume 14, Issue 45

Pubic comments on the proposed “Waters of the US” regulations close on November 14, 2014.  That is if they do not extend them once again.  I very much encourage you to submit your comments before then.  Many of our readers already have done so as evidenced by the over 250,000 comments submitted to date.

You can submit your comments online by going to:  http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=EPA-HQ-OW-2011-0880-0001

If you do comment, I would encourage you to post your comment tracking number in the comments section of this post.  My comment comment tracking number is 1jy-8fd2-fndk.  I have posted my full comment below.

My main concern is not that the definition needs to be revamped.  Rather, it is more focused on the way it is being done.  I am very concerned that the vast majority of water resource and wetland professionals have been left out of this discussion.  The regulations have been drafted by a very select group of mostly academics including at least one foreign national from Canada.  There are virtually no professionals involved.

I do not believe that this new definition is a matter of the “right thing to do.”  It is more a matter of is it the legal thing to do.  Does the President have the right to act alone and promulgate a regulation that expands the  reach of government into private landownership?  I believe that is a matter for our representative and elected officials in Congress to take up.

What do you think?

– Marc

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Environmental Protection Agency

Water Docket

Mail Code 2822T

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20460

Re: Comments on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s and U.S. Army Corps of

Engineers’ Proposed Rule to Define “Waters of the United States” Under the Clean

Water Act,

Docket ID No. EPA-HW-OW-2011-0880

To whom it may concern:

I would like to offer my comments on the proposed “Waters of the US” (2011-EPA-OW-0880) as advertised the Federal Register on April 21, 2014.

My chief comment relates to the overall stated premise of these new rules. The proposed rules are concerned with the perceived issue that the existing rules do not adequately represent the intent of Congress (ergo the people) when they passed the Clean Water Act in 1972. Currently, it is the Agencies’ stated belief that the intent of Congress was to claim jurisdictional authority over nearly every body of water in the United States including wetlands and non-wetlands.

In 2001 The Supreme Court ruled in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC) that Congress did not have unlimited authority to regulate all bodies of water. This was emphasized on isolated wetlands associated with the SWANCC site. These wetland areas lacked the required commerce connection to downstream waters. The Clean Water Act is limited in jurisdiction to only those waters that have a potential to affect interstate or international commerce. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution limits the role of the Federal government in this matter to only those areas that could affect commerce.

The proposed rules seem to ignore the SWANCC ruling of the Supreme Court. In fact, it is the stated intention of this rule to reverse the Courts decision.

Under the Constitution, it is the role of the executive branch to administer the laws that are passed by Congress. It is acknowledged that many aspects of the Clean Water Act are purposely left to the discretion of the executive branch to interpret these laws by promulgating regulations such as this proposed rule. However, the Executive branch does not have the authority to expand the regulations beyond what the laws allows. Similarly, it is the role of the Judicial Branch to reign in Congress and the President should they pass a law that is beyond what the Constitution allows as was done with the SWANCC case.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report referenced in the proposed rule states that there is a minimal expansion of Federal jurisdiction over what is currently called “Waters of the US”. The report estimates that the expansion is only about 3%. While this may seem small on a relative scale it represents a land area roughly the size of the State of Arizona. This is in fact a rather large expansion of the Federal Governments reach into private land ownership. I am very concerned with the concept that the Executive Branch can expand the Federal Governments land holdings without the consent of the other two branches of government and the people.

Much of the proposed rule is based upon a misinterpretation of Supreme Court Justice Kennedy’s lone opinion in the 2006 John A. Rapanos, et ux., et al., Petitioners v. United States; June Carabell, et al., Petitioners v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, et al. case. The concept of significant nexus is central to his opinion. However the proposed rule offers no further insight into what constitutes “significant.”

The proposed rule does by way of reference to the EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Connectivity Report delve into the concept of “nexus.” The SAB report ostensibly argues that all bodies of water are connected to all other bodies of water. At a very fundamental level this is true. However, the SAB report does not address the concept of which of these connections or nexus are “significant” as described by Justice Kennedy. If it is assume that all waters are connected and that there is no procedure to distinguish these connections as significant, then are we to assume that all connected water bodies are considered ““Waters of the US?”

It is clear in the opinions of the Supreme Court Justices that there is a difference between jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional waters. What is not clear, and in fact these proposed regulations make it much less clear, what exactly is a ““Waters of the US.”

Furthermore, I draw your attention to the 199 additional documents posted to the Regulation.gov docket folder in the last two weeks. They in fact have not been posted and the public is greeted with this 12 page notice:

Additional Supporting Materials for Docket EPA-HQ-OW-2011-0880

EPA will be adding the following documents to the docket. Copyrighted material is publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly available docket materials are available electronically at http://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the Water Docket, EPA Docket Center, EPA West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. The Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public Reading Room is 202–566–1744, and the telephone number for the Water Docket is 202–566–2426.

To what purpose do these documents serve? Why at this juncture are the Agencies concerned with copyright issues? It does beg the question of whether these copyright issue were addressed in the SAB report. Perhaps this should be disclosed.

How does this serve the public trust when the vast majority of these documents are only available by taking a trip to Washington, D.C. If the agencies feel that these documents are necessary to support their case for further regulations, then they should resolve the stated copyright concerns and publish them on the website in their entirety.   Otherwise these 199 documents should be removed from the docket.

I disagree that there is a regulatory need to update the definition of what is a waters of the United States. What is needed and was voiced by Justice Alito in the Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency case is for Congress to more narrowly define what is meant by a “Waters of the US” by amending the Clean Water Act.   This would afford the public through its elected representatives in Congress to express its concerns and support for what should be regulated as a “Waters of the US” and what should not. This current proposed regulation dictates to the public what is and is not jurisdictional without the consent of the governed. With over a quarter- million public comments already submitted, it is clear that this is a matter for the people to decide, not a single branch of the government.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Marc Seelinger, PWS