LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, along with 23 other state attorneys general, submitted comments to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan and the Army Corps of Engineers opposing the Biden Administration’s effort to reinstate a far-reaching definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The Biden Administration’s proposal would subject farmers and ranchers, hunters, and even water-sport enthusiasts to unnecessary and burdensome regulation.
“This rule will harm our rural communities, and that is why I fought President Obama’s attempt to do the same thing,” said Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. “As the wife of a row crop farmer, I’ve seen the impact of overregulation and know this latest example of federal overreach by Biden will harm Arkansas’s $16 billion agriculture industry and hurt Arkansans.”
In 2015, the Obama Administration issued a stunningly broad rule redefining what constitutes a water of the United States, in order to expand the power of unelected federal bureaucrats to regulate everything from puddles to dry creek beds. The Trump Administration repealed that harmful rule, yet the Biden Administration once again seeks to restore that burdensome regulation.
The comment explains, “State and local officials understand their local environments’ unique hydrological challenges better than federal regulators. They can respond faster to changing conditions, too. And they are more closely accountable to constituents and stakeholders who have the sense of local needs.”