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October 09, 2015
WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement today regarding the decision by the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend the EPA’s burdensome “Waters of the United States” rule.
“The EPA has no business regulating ponds and puddles in Missouri and across our country and today I am pleased by the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend the implementation of the Obama Administration’s WOTUS rule,” said Blunt. “This rule was another example of executive overreach and today the courts agreed that the hardworking Missourians’ private property should belong to themselves and not the EPA.”
Blunt has a long record of fighting the Obama Administration’s proposed WOTUS rule. In September 2015, Blunt co-sponsored a joint resolution with 46 Senate colleagues disapproving the WOTUS rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency that expands the scope of federal authority over land and waterways in the United States.
On April 30, 2015, Blunt and his colleagues introduced the Federal Water Quality Protection Act. The bipartisan legislation will ensure the protection of traditional navigable waters of the United States. It also protects farmers, ranchers and private landowners by removing isolated ponds, agriculture water, storm water, groundwater, floodwater, municipal water supply systems, wastewater management systems, and streams from the list of water impacted by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rule.
In June 2014, Blunt joined U.S. Senator John Barrasso (Wyo.) and their colleagues to introduce the Protecting Water and Property Rights Act of 2014, legislation that would prevent the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers from finalizing their March 2014 proposed rule. In March 2015, Blunt also co-sponsored an amendment that was added to the FY2016 Senate budget to stop the Obama Administration from taking over all waters in the U.S.
According to an analysis (http://www.fb.org/issues/wotus/resources/) by the American Farm Bureau, an expanded definition of the WOTUS rule would expand EPA and Army Corps of Engineers authority over approximately 99.7 percent of Missouri.
