May 01, 2025

Nancy Stoner

Testimony to U.S. EPA: Not Another WOTUS Rulemaking

"Another waters of the US rulemaking would be counterproductive. It would lead to more confusion, not clarity."

On May 1, 2025 ELPC Senior Attorney Nancy Stoner testified at a U.S. EPA listening session. She urged the agency not to move forward with its proposal to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in redefining which water bodies are protected under the Clean Water Act. The definition of these protected “Waters of the United States” has shifted over the years, as discussed in previous ELPC blogs. The 2023 Supreme Court Sackett decision was a major blow to clean water protections nationwide, particularly for wetlands and ephemeral streams. ELPC has been working at the state level to step up wetlands protections that can fill the gap, but now is not the time to make things any worse. Read Nancy’s full testimony here.

ELPC Senior Attorney Nancy Stoner Testimony to U.S. EPA

Thursday May 1, 2025 – Washington, D. C.

I’m Nancy Stoner, a Senior Attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a nonprofit that protects public health and natural resources of nine states in the Midwest, including the Great Lakes. I have been working on clean water issues since October of 1987 and twice served at the U.S. EPA.

I first want to thank the EPA staff for their hard work and dedication to the Agency’s mission of protecting human health and the environment, and the Corps staff for their partnership with EPA in this important work. Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972 to protect waterways across the US from pollution.  While not perfect by any means, it has been a huge success.  Rivers that were once on fire or were filled with dead fish, sewage, and industrial waste are now a huge source of economic and recreational activity and provide clean, safe, reliable resources for drinking, for growing food, for wildlife, and much more.

The Supreme Court’s Sackett decision makes that success much more difficult to maintain since more than half of the remaining wetlands are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act. Many small streams that flow into lakes, major rivers, and coastal waters have now been left unprotected as well in a rulemaking promulgated by EPA and the Corps to implement the Sackett decision.  In my view, the rulemaking relinquished jurisdiction over too many waters post-Sackett, but now is not the time to re-think those decisions.  The rulemaking to implement the Sackett decision is done.  Another waters of the US rulemaking would be counterproductive. It would lead to more confusion, not clarity.

I urge EPA and the Corps instead to direct resources to implementing the existing rules to provide timely and clear jurisdictional determinations to everyone who wants one. Similarly, EPA and the Corps should direct more resources to permitting and enforcement of the NPDES program, the 404 program, 401 water quality certifications and other tools that have been proven to be successful in protecting water resources over the more than 50 years that the Clean Water Act has now been in place.

Again, I thank the EPA and Corps staff working to protect waterways across the US for their service to the American public.  Thank you!