The Senate joined the House on Wednesday in voting to overturn the Biden administration’s “waters of the United States” regulation, which spells out the upstream reach of water pollution laws. The White House said earlier this month that President Biden would veto the Republican-sponsored resolution of disapproval if it reached his desk.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule this spring on an Idaho case that could greatly limit federal protection of wetlands. The Biden rule, the third WOTUS regulation in less than a decade, replaced a Trump rule that covered fewer waterways and wetlands. When it issued the updated regulation last December, the EPA said it covered the territory intended by Congress in the 1972 Clean Water Act — “territorial seas, interstate waters, as well as upstream water resources that significantly affect those waters.”
Five Democrats joined Republicans in the Senate roll call, 53-43, to excise the WOTUS rule. “I urge President Biden not to overrule the will of a bipartisan majority in Congress, and instead draft a new rule that doesn’t unfairly penalize millions of Americans and jeopardize future growth in our country,” said Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the lead Senate sponsor of the joint resolution. In the House, nine Democrats and all but one Republican voted earlier this month for H.J. Res. 27, which passed, 227-198.
Farm groups were among the plaintiffs challenging the WOTUS rule in court.