GOP States Urge EPA to Further Shrink Scope of Federal Waters

A coalition of 20 mostly GOP-controlled states led by West Virginia wants the EPA to avoid usurping state authority with its new waters of the US, or WOTUS, definition.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s longstanding interpretation of the Clean Water Act has for decades overlooked state primacy over intrastate waters, and the new WOTUS definition should reverse that, West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey wrote to the EPA in a letter posted online Tuesday.

McCuskey’s letter was also signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, ...