New Regulations Ease Burden on Landowners

The Trump administration continues to advance its domestic agenda and private landowners stand to benefit from two new rules finalized over the summer.

The Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule, a contentious Obama-era regulation that extended federal jurisdiction over which waters are regulated under the Clean Water Act, was repealed, bringing much-needed regulatory certainty.

The Obama rule had been mired with legal challenges that resulted in a regulatory patchwork of where the rule applied.  A new WOTUS definition has been proposed that covers traditional navigable waters and tributaries to those waters but excludes features that only contain water during or in response to rainfall, groundwater, ditches, storm water control and waste treatment systems.

Separately, changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) were finalized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  The new rule changes affect how future assessments will be made, including ending the “blanket rule” that automatically gave threatened species the same protections as endangered, placing limits on the designation of critical habitat, and allowing information regarding economic impact of a listing to be shared with the public (but not used in making determinations).

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