In a vote on the House floor on Thursday, Rep. Mary Peltola continued her war on Alaska’s economy and private property owners of America.

The vote was to disapprove the Biden Administration declaration that all waters in United States fall under the control of government. Ponds in farm fields. Rain that drains into streams that drain into rivers. All water on Native Corporation land in Alaska would be impacted. Peltola voted to keep the Biden rule intact.

The rule Peltola voted to preserve sounds complicated because it is complicated. Simply put, Biden Administration has revised the definition of “Waters of the United States” to include nearly all waters.

The vote in the U.S. House on Thursday was to disapprove that rule, and it went 227 to disapprove, and 198 to not disapprove, with 9 not voting. Peltola voted with the Democrats to not cancel the rule and to therefore put all waters under federal authority, something that the State of Alaska has fought for years.

How much water the federal government would take under this rule would be up to interpretation by the Environmental Protection Agency and the courts, and would change year after year, through litigation.

“When upstream waters significantly affect the integrity of waters for which the Federal interest is indisputable—the traditional navigable waters, the territorial seas, and interstate waters—this rule ensures that Clean Water Act programs apply to protect those paragraph (a)(1) waters by including such upstream waters within the scope of the ‘waters of the United States.’ Where waters do not significantly affect the integrity of waters for which the Federal interest is indisputable, this rule leaves regulation exclusively to the Tribes and States. Additionally, it is important to note that the fact that a water is one of the “waters of the United States” does not mean that no activity can occur in that water; rather, it means that activities must comply with the Clean Water Act’s permitting programs, and those programs include numerous statutory exemptions and regulatory exclusions.

Essentially, what happened when the Clean Water Act was applied to State of Alaska-owned land at the Pebble deposit in Western Alaska will now be applied to all private land in the United States, including places like private land in Texas, where oil and gas leases occur on land that is occasionally prone to flooding.

House Joint Resolution 27, sponsored by Missouri Rep. Sam Graves, must now pass the Senate, and then must be signed by the president. It is likely to pass the Senate, because Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is not amused by the federal overreach, but that vote will depend on whether Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell returns from the hospital, where he has been treated for a fall, and whether Democrat Sen. John Fetterman returns from psychiatric care at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he is being treated for depression.

In any case, President Joe Biden is likely to veto it when it comes to his desk.

In December, when the rule was announced, Sen. Dan Sullivan blasted the Biden Administration:

“The Biden administration today announced its ‘final’ Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule, resuscitating the burdensome and overreaching Obama-era ‘final’ interpretation of the Clean Water Act and giving the EPA vast authority over lands across the country, particularly in Alaska, which has more wetlands than any other state in the country by far,” Sullivan said in December. “Remarkably, the Biden administration refused to pause issuing this WOTUS Rule just a few months until the Supreme Court rules in a case (Sackett vs. EPA II) that will determine the scope of the agency’s authority under the Clean Water Act. As a result, millions of hard-working Americans and Alaskans are left in regulatory limbo.”

“Under this rule, land owners face the potential for thousands of dollars in litigation and months of bureaucratic back-and-forth just to fill a ditch or build a structure on their own property. This rule abandons the balanced, bipartisan and statutorily-based implementation of the Clean Water Act that we had achieved working with the Trump administration, through multiple court victories, and through multiple field hearings I chaired as a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee—including in Alaska.

“The truth is, all Americans want clean water, and we have some of the country’s cleanest water right here in Alaska. But the federal government should not take authority from states and run rough shod over the law, good-paying jobs, and our economy—which is on the verge of a recession—to achieve that goal. I will do everything I can to fight this illegal federal power grab, and I look forward to the Supreme Court once again reining in this out-of-control federal agency.”

It’s the third change in 10 years to the definition of WOTUS, even as a landmark decision from the U.S. Supreme Court is expected within weeks, which could require another significant revision and further regulatory changes, the groups noted. December’s announcement contains literally thousands of pages of documents, which Alaskans have worked to understand.

Last year, trade groups in Alaska also voiced their criticism of the Biden Administration’s return to draconian water rules.

The Alaska Chamber, the Associated General Contractors of Alaska, the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, the Alaska Miners Association, the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, the Council of Alaska Producers, and the Resource Development Council for Alaska expressed dismay at the newest WOTUS Rule.

“RDC is disappointed to see this massive final rule released on the last business day of the year,” said Leila Kimbrell, Resource Development Council for Alaska’s executive director in December. “While we are still in the process of reviewing the hundreds of pages of the new final rule, we have significant concerns over our initial assessment that this rule unnecessarily expands federal jurisdiction over state waters and brings further uncertainty to federal permitting requirements.  The definition of WOTUS is of utmost importance to RDC and its membership because Alaska is uniquely vulnerable when it comes to EPA regulation and federal overreach.  This new rule will result in disproportionate impacts to Alaska and RDC’s members, from oil and gas, to maritime, fishing, tourism, timber, as well as Alaska Native corporations, and rural communities.  While we continue to review the final document released today, RDC is committed to working with our federal and state partners to ensure a workable solution for Alaska’s unique needs.” 

EPA prepares to undo Trump-era part of Clean Water Act, add back road ditches to federal wetland oversight