GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul is setting his sights on defending the nation from aggressive water regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The senator from Kentucky introduced a bill Friday to hobble the EPA’s water enforcement powers that he says are too broad and unchecked.
“The time has come to bring common sense back to the federal jurisdiction over navigable waters and place necessary limitations on out-of-control government agencies,” Paul said.
“Every year, thousands of property owners across America fall victim to the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers’ bullying tactics,” he added. “I firmly believe it is the landowners’ constitutional rights to do what they please with their own property.”
The bill, the Defense of Water and Property Act of 2015, takes aim at an EPA rule that broadly redefines what can be considered a “navigable waterway” under the Clean Water Act, the law that gives the agency its power to go after water polluters.
Also referred to as EPA’s Waters of the United States rule, critics say the change in definition is too broad and can easily be used to regulate areas of water that are neither navigable nor a waterway.
Critics fear the rule would open up a swath of the country’s landowners to new regulation and enforcement due to the definition change.
Paul’s bill makes clear that navigable waters refer only to “streams, oceans, rivers and lakes that are connected to waters that are navigable-in-fact.” It also makes certain that the EPA understands what is excluded from its oversight powers, such as manmade structures and ditches.
