LaMalfa introduces resolution striking down WOTUS rule
Congressman Doug LaMalfa joined 195 Republican Members of Congress in introducing a Congressional Review Act resolution to strike down the Biden Administration’s updated Waters of the United States rule.
“President Biden’s expanded WOTUS rule is a huge land and water grab that gives the federal government overreaching authority on virtually any private property in the nation, placing homeowners, famers and small businesses under the thumb of EPA bureaucrats,” LaMalfa said. “House Republicans have been unified in combatting federal overreach on WOTUS rules and regulations under both the Obama and Biden Administrations. We must do everything in our jurisdiction to strike down this absurd rule yet again.”
In July, Congressman LaMalfa authored an opinion article for the Washington Times detailing how the Supreme Court case of West Virginia v. EPA sets precedent for their review of the Biden rule in Sackett II v. EPA.
Impacts
In February 2013, with no warning or opportunity to discuss the matter, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers sent Tehama County farmer John Duarte a cease-and-desist letter to suspend farming operations, claiming that he had illegally filled wetlands on his wheat field by merely plowing it. Duarte was forced to spend millions to defend himself and protect himself from financial and personal ruin and settled the case in August of 2017 at great cost.
Tehama County wheat farmer Jack LaPant was targeted in 2012 for investigation and prosecution by the Army Corps of Engineers for over a decade for growing a wheat crop on another portion of the same property as the year before. The Army Corps argued that the new area was in a lower area of the field likely from recent rain.
The EPA sued the owners of the Anchordoguy ranch in 2010 for violating the Clean Water Act when they renovated their property. The EPA settled the case in 2014 and forced the Tehama County ranchers to pay $1 million in fines as a settlement.