Our Energy and Environmental Practice Group issued a client alert today related to a rule released by the EPA and USACE that deals with “waters of the United States.”  The rule will impact land development and permitting.  The first two paragraphs of the article are reproduced below and additional details and the full text of the alert are available here.

On December 11, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and the Army Corps of Engineers (“USACE”) announced the long-awaited replacement rule for the 2015 “waters of the United States” rule (“WOTUS I”).  In effect, the 2015 WOTUS I rule expanded EPA and USACE jurisdiction over wetlands and similar features (and created uncertainty) under the federal Clean Water Act (“CWA”), which complicated permitting for land development.  As written into the regulatory text from 2015, the agencies’ “case-by-case” interpretation of their jurisdiction had the tendency of placing landowners, developers, farmers, and other stakeholders in the precarious position of not knowing whether a given body of water was jurisdictional under the CWA.  In practice, landowners could find themselves on the wrong end of an enforcement action if either EPA or USACE determined that the waterbody was jurisdictional, even if such a determination was only made after the landowner’s allegedly offending activity (e.g., construction, plowing, backfilling) had ceased.

Now, the replacement rule (“WOTUS II”) proposes to scale back the scope of EPA and USACE jurisdiction over wetlands and similar features under the CWA.  WOTUS II will be published in the coming weeks for public comment.  Because the proposed rule will impact land development and permitting, and will be hotly contested, regulated stakeholders should seriously consider participating in the process and submitting comments on the important proposal.

Please read the full alert here.