In a hearing this week in the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary to the U.S. Army for Civil Works, told the subcommittee that the Army Corps is “unequivocally committed” to implementing a joint clean water rule with the Environmental Protection Agency “as effectively and efficiently as possible.”
The hearing, “Oversight of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Participation in the New Definition of the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS)” was held to examine internal Army Corps memos, from April and May, that were sharply critical of the way the Environmental Protection Agency wrote the draft final rule without addressing critical questions surrounding the technical, legal and economic analyses underlying it.
Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman of the full committee submitted an opening statement which highlighted the purpose of the hearing. ” The Waters of the United States rule is not just another example of regulatory overreach by the Obama Administration. This rule is not only unlawful, it is completely unfounded. For most of its rules the administration puts together a factual record and argues that the facts support more federal control. This factual information can be reviewed and evaluated as part of the administrative record. This did not happen in the waters of the United States rulemaking. According to the one court that has looked at the merits of this rule, EPA and the Army simply made up new tests for expanding federal control over land and water without any support in the record,” Senator Inhofe said.
Assistant Secretary Darcy, who was the only witness at the hearing, said the memos represent a “snapshot in time” and said the final regulation incorporated additional comments from her agency. “I was not pressured to sign anything,” she told subcommittee Chairman Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
The committee is considering holding more hearings on the WOTUS rule.
