In a long-shot tactic, Republicans in the Senate and House pressed on Thursday for a vote to overturn the Biden administration’s Waters of the United States rule, which spells out the upstream reach of water pollution laws. It was the third WOTUS rule to be issued in less than a decade. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in coming weeks on an Idaho case that would greatly limit federal protection of wetlands.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said the resolutions of disapproval filed by Republicans “would stop this misguided overreach by the Biden administration” and “give every member of Congress the chance to stand with farmers, ranchers, landowners, and builders.” All 49 Republican senators, including Capito, sponsored the Senate resolution. In the House, where Republicans hold 222 seats, the resolution had 152 sponsors.
To succeed, a resolution of disapproval must be passed in identical form by majority vote in each chamber of Congress and signed by the president; a veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote in each house. By law, Congress must vote on the disapproval of a regulation within 60 legislative days of the publication of the rule.
President Biden was unlikely to sign a resolution that would revoke one of his administration’s initiatives. Democrats control the Senate, 51-49, and could prevent a floor vote on the resolution.
With that in mind, Republicans will fashion the resolution as a political test for Democrats and a show of support to their supporters, said analysts.
The resolutions were the latest opposition to the WOTUS rule, which the EPA announced in late December, saying it would assure safe drinking water for Americans “while supporting agriculture, local economies, and downstream communities.” The regulation covers more waterways and wetlands than the narrower definition written by the Trump administration, which was overturned by a federal district court in 2021. The EPA said the new regulation covered the ground intended by Congress in the 1972 Clean Water Act — “territorial seas, interstate waters, as well as upstream water resources that significantly affect those waters.”
Farm groups, which were prominent opponents of the WOTUS rule proposed by the Obama administration, said the Biden version was a regulatory nightmare built on murky interpretations of the clean water law. They are part of a lawsuit filed against the EPA in mid-January to void the WOTUS rule.
“The administration clumsily put forward its rule before the Supreme Court has issued a ruling in the Sackett case,” said House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chair Sam Graves of Missouri, referring to the Idaho case awaiting a decision. Graves, a Missouri Republican, was the lead sponsor of the House resolution.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, an avowed foe of government overreach, deplored “this continuous game of regulatory ping-pong” and called for “definitive guidance from the Supreme Court.” The foundation represented the Idaho landowners challenging federal wetlands rules.
