After the decision, EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said he was “deeply disappointed that the court took away the competence of the EPA that has stood for 50 years,” while President Joe Biden said to “take our country back.”
“This puts our Nation’s wetlands — and the rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds that connect to them — at risk of pollution and destruction, jeopardizing the sources of clean water that millions of people rely on. millions of American families, farmers, and businesses,” Biden said. in a statement.
The EPA and the corps ended the rule after the Supreme Court announced it would hear the Sacketts case. However, at hearings on the EPA’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal this spring, Regan defended the decision to proceed with the rulemaking and said any decision in the case would ultimately affect only a portion of the final rule. .
House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Sam Graves, R-Mo., said after Thursday’s ruling the next step should be for the administration to withdraw the “ill-advised rule.” Earlier this year he and Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, RW.Va., tried to vacate the rule through a joint resolution on the Congressional Review Act, which Biden ultimately vetoed. .
While the joint resolution passed both chambers largely along party lines, some Democrats, including House Agriculture ranking member David Scott, D-Ga., and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Joe Manchin III, DW.Va., joined Republicans in supporting the measure.
