Congressman Smith Statement on EPA Waters of the U.S. Rule

Thursday I released the following statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Waters of the U.S. rule which a federal judge in North Dakota has blocked from taking effect on Friday, August 28th.

The EPA’s vastly unpopular Waters of the U.S. rule would begin a new era of government control over private property. Over the last year and a half, the EPA has continually ignored the legitimate concerns of states, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, farmers and landowners who will be impacted. The irony of this rule is not lost on millions of Americans. While the agency has been frantically working to regulate the trickle of small streams in Americans' backyards, the EPA has failed at its core mission to protect the environment and is responsible for a toxic spill that polluted waterways impacting at least three different states. The Waters of the U.S. rule should be halted until EPA can clean up its act and get its priorities in order.

I have raised numerous concerns regarding the scope of this far-reaching rule and the EPA’s scientific justifications for it. Earlier this month, I along with several Republican Science Committee members sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s questioning her defense of the science behind the Waters of the U.S. rule at a July 9, 2015 hearing.

In May, I voted in favor of the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act of 2015 (H.R. 1732), a bill he cosponsored that would force the EPA to withdraw its Waters of the U.S. rule until the agency appropriately engages with stakeholders on the rule’s impacts.

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