During consideration of the farm bill (H.R. 2), Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced an amendment to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 “Waters of the United States” rule. On the floor of the House, Banks called this rule “the poster child of government overreach during the Obama administration,” noting that it gives “unelected bureaucrats at the EPA the power to broadly interpret what is a navigable waterway” under the Clean Water Act — so broadly that “even a puddle in a farm’s drainage ditch could be subjected to Federal regulation.”
The House adopted Banks’ amendment on May 18, 2018 by a vote of 238 to 173 (Roll Call 203). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because both federal water regulations and the EPA are unconstitutional, and if the rule were allowed to stand, activities such as farming and real estate development would be greatly hampered, since farmers and developers would be subject to increased unconstitutional permit requirements and fines concerning their treatment of almost any body of water, no matter how small.
