Hatch Statement on WOTUS, Latest Obama Administration Overreach
Washington, D.C.— Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior Republican in the United States Senate, issued the following statement on the EPA’s announcement of its finalized Waters of the United States rule:
“As a longtime proponent of the responsible stewardship of our natural resources, I was extremely disappointed to see the EPA's Waters of the United States rule finalized today. This rule represents Washington's regulatory bureaucracy at its worst. In devising this rule, the Agency deliberately avoided the protections that Congress built into the rulemaking process to ensure the consideration of economic impacts and may have even violated the Anti-Lobbying Act in 'astroturfing' fabricated public support for its position. The result is a disastrous outcome that threatens to extend the federal government's heavy-handed control over even small ponds and irrigation ditches on Utah's family farms and ranches. I will continue to fight this egregious abuse of the EPA's authority as well as the larger problem of regulatory overreach by the Obama administration.”
Senator Hatch has long been an advocate for reform of the regulatory bureaucracy. He has played a key role in every major regulatory reform effort for the past 38 years, including as an original cosponsor of the 1981 Regulatory Reform Act and as an author of the 1995 Comprehensive Regulatory Reform Act while serving as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
