New Congressional report on the excesses of EPA and the Army Corps

September 20, 2016 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

This morning, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works issued From Preventing Pollution of Navigable and Interstate Waters to Regulating Farm Fields, Puddles and Dry Land:  A Senate Report on the Expansion of Jurisdiction Claimed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act.  The report is a follow-up to the hearing this past May before the Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife, addressing the EPA’s and the Corps’ property-rights-infringing administration of the Clean Water Act.  Relying in part on PLF’s written testimony for the record, the Senate report explains that, even with agencies’ controversial WOTUS rule having been stayed, EPA and the Corps are still abusing the property rights of farmers and other landowners through an essentially unbounded interpretation of their own regulatory authority.  The report therefore provides important evidence to lawmakers as they consider legislative responses to the agencies’ excesses.