Once again the Environmental Protection Agency has promulgated a rule defining what constitutes the “Waters of the United States” and once again the agency looks for the back door to inflict regulatory rule over private property.

The EPA recently published a revised rule that seeks to redefine and expand the term “navigable waters.” The description is important because it limits the reach of the EPA under the Clean Water Act, passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, Richard Nixon, in 1972.

As originally intended, the EPA could only regulate those waters that were interstate in nature, not intrastate.

“Among the reasons (for such a limitation), Congress did not want EPA bullying farmers over small depressions in their land that occasionally hold rainwater, bullying people who dig a ditch to help drain their land, and using the smallest of streams and micro-bodies of water to restrict property use,” said Jay Lehr, science director for the Heartland Institute.

Lehr added, “(The) EPA is attempting to stand the CWA on its head as it continues to seek more money and power.”

The previous effort under the Trump Administration was derailed. But now they’re back.

Imagine that. A federal bureau seeking more money and power.

Get a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers before you dig out any accumulated silt. Or else.

The new WOTUS rule would expand the definition of “navigable waters” to include ponds, certain streams, ditches and other bodies of water under the Clean Water Act, as determined by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The revised rule creates greater government overreach, produces additional red tape, and leads to uncertainty for landowners and businesses,” said Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. “This will have a negative economic impact at a time when our state is already dealing with increased costs, supply chain issues and staffing shortages.”

And, as in previous EPA WOTUS power grab attempts, at least 25 governors are ready to file lawsuits to stop it.

The CWA allows the EPA to issue administrative orders against violators and seek civil or criminal penalties when necessary. Thus, one can be fined and imprisoned not for transgressing a law but an administrative rule.

WOTUSA, however, elucidates more than just a money and power grab by a federal agency, it illustrates the sheer arrogance of an administration and an agency.

The Socialist Democratic-controlled EPA is defying recent Supreme Court rulings against it regarding its definitions of “navigable” and “interstate” waters.

They have been told at least twice in the last 20 years that this kind of proposed WOTUSA definition, or similar definitions seeking to control otherwise non-regulative waters, were overly broad. For this legal limitation, they have no regard but disdain.

In Georgia, for example, the reconstituted and revised rule could put an additional 40,000 miles of Georgia streams under federal control. Should that happen, then roughly 57% of all Georgia waterways would be subject to direct federal regulation.

That’s a lot of intrastate water controlled by an act intended to affect only interstate waterways.

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall, who knows something about farmland and unnecessary government regulation says that the “… new WOTUS rule once again gives the federal government sweeping authority over private lands. This isn’t what clean water regulations were intended to do. Farmers and ranchers should not have to hire a team of lawyers and consultants to determine how we can farm our land.”

WOTUSA is the government’s divining rod to find and use water as a way to transfer more property rights away from the private landowner and the family farmer and reinvest those rights in the regulators.

This is the clarion call for the new Congress to reclaim its rightful and exclusive power to end bureaucratic legislation.

And unless and until that is done, the Congress may well find itself regulated — and relegated into irrelevancy.

Gary Wisenbaker is a Realtor with Century21 Realty in Valdosta (912) 713-2553 and can be reached at gwisenbaker@C21realtyadvisors.com.