(DES MOINES) – Gov. Kim Reynolds issued the following statement Tuesday after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule to rescind the Clean Water Rule and redefine “waters of the United States” or WOTUS:
“Waters of the United States was a significant and severe case of government overreach by the Obama administration. I want to thank Secretary Pruitt for recognizing that WOTUS forced onerous and unnecessary burdens on Iowa’s farmers and businesses. I also want to express my appreciation to the Trump administration for its continuing commitment to work with states, not against them.”
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Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today made the following comment on the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers’ proposed rule to withdraw the controversial Waters of the U.S. rule. Grassley has been an ardent opponent of the rule, which would have defined 97 percent of the land in Iowa as a waterway. Among other actions, Grassley called on then-President-elect Trump to repeal the rule upon taking office.
“This is great news for accountability in government. This was a bad regulation drafted under a bad process. The EPA over-reached its authority and ignored and manipulated legitimate concerns raised by the public. Farmers, land owners and builders in Iowa struggled to make sense of the regulation. Having the federal EPA and the Corps of Engineers require permits for routine land use decisions is a waste of resources that are better used enforcing existing regulations against discharging pollutants into the nation’s waterways. Agencies ought to enforce the laws as Congress intended, not stretch beyond their authority to inflict unnecessary expense and red tape on law-abiding farmers and employers.”
