BISMARCK -- Budget writers in both the U.S. House and Senate voted this week to block funding for new water regulations that members of North Dakota's congressional delegation warn will have devastating impacts on property owners and the economy.
Republican Sen. John Hoeven, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said language in the Department of Interior and EPA appropriations bill approved by the committee Thursday will prevent the EPA from spending money to implement or administer the rule.
The full Senate still must approve the bill.
Hoeven said the rule would burden property owners with new federal permits, compliance costs and threats of fines, and expand the EPA's reach beyond the navigable waters it's currently permitted to regulate.
"The hard, cold reality is they're taking authority they don't have," he said.
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House appropriators took similar action Tuesday not to fund the rule to keep it from being put into practice. Last month, the House also passed a bill preventing the Army Corps of Engineers from spending any funds to implement the rule and a separate bill requiring the two agencies to withdraw the rule and develop a new proposed rule.
"WOTUS is an onerous, job-killing rule which must be stopped," Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in a statement.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill that would force the EPA to consult with states and farmers, ranchers and others affected by the rule and revise it. Hoeven also is backing the bill, the Federal Water Quality Protection Act, which is similar to legislation he cosponsored in 2014.
Gov. Jack Dalrymple has called the rule "unworkable," and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem has said North Dakota and other states will likely challenge the rule. During a one-day session of the state Legislature on Tuesday, House members passed a resolution urging Congress to invalidate the rule.
The EPA says the finalized rule reduces red tape and provides more certainty about which wetlands, ponds, ditches and other waters are covered under the Clean Water Act.
In a blog post last week, Deputy Assistant EPA Administrator Ken Kopocis wrote that the rule doesn't regulate most ditches or add permitting requirements on agriculture and will actually reduce the scope of waters protected by the act compared to the 1970s, '80s and '90s.
The White House has threatened to veto attempts to roll back the rule. Hoeven said the Senate may not have the necessary 67 votes to overturn a veto of the de-authorizing measure, and there's a better chance of defunding the rule for the upcoming fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
"If you defund it for 2016, it does kind of take care of it permanently, because (Obama) wouldn't have time in his presidency to gear up and redo it," Hoeven said.
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Reach Nowatzki at (701) 255-5607 or by email at mnowatzki@forumcomm.com .
