Public comment period opens soon for supplemental WOTUS repeal

On June 29, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers issued a supplementary proposed rule related to the repeal of the 2015 Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule. This particular comment period deals with “the legal basis” for WOTUS and is a supplement to the July 2017 repeal proposal. As with the 2017 repeal proposal, the supplementary proposed rule would repeal the 2015 WOTUS rule in its entirety and recodify the regulatory definitions of “waters of the United States” that existed prior to the Aug. 28, 2015 effective date of the 2015 rule. In part, this supplementary proposed rule is in response to the numerous public comments that advocated keeping parts and doing away with parts of the WOTUS rule. The new comment period will be open for 30 days following the proposed rule’s publishing in the Federal Register. As of July 12, that had not yet happened. Once the comment period opens, comments can be submitted online at www.regulations.gov, searching for the Docket ID EPA-HQ-OW-2017-0203. — WLJ