<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Opponents of the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s proposed Waters of the United States rule failed to garner enough votes in the Senate on Thursday to override President Barack Obama\u2019s veto of their resolution of disapproval regarding the rule.<\/p>\n
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., voted in support of overriding the president\u2019s veto of Senate Joint Resolution 22. The measure would have nullified the proposed changes to the definition of \u201cwaters of the United States\u201d under the Clean Water Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe responsibility for managing Colorado\u2019s water should be left to state and local governments along with our water districts, not with the federal government through overreaching regulations like WOTUS,\u201d Gardner said in a statement soon after casting his vote. \u201cI will continue to forcefully oppose WOTUS and take any steps possible to block its implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 52-40 vote came short of the 60 votes needed to override the president\u2019s veto. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., voted against overriding the veto.<\/p>\n
The anti-WOTUS resolution, of which Gardner was a co-sponsor, passed the U.S. Senate in November on a 53-44 vote. Last week, the House of Representatives voted 253-166 in favor of the resolution, sending it to the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cClarifying the scope of the Clean Water Act helps to protect these resources and safeguard public health,\u201d President Obama said in his veto message on Tuesday. \u201cBecause this resolution seeks to block the progress represented by this rule and deny businesses and communities the regulatory certainty and clarity needed to invest in projects that rely on clean water, I cannot support it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opponents of the rule change view it as a federal takeover of water rights on private lands that would expose impacted landowners to higher compliance costs.<\/p>\n
The EPA says the rule does not protect any new types of water, regulate ditches or groundwater, or create new requirements that would impact private property rights.<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, previously voted in favor of striking down the WOTUS rule. A spokesman for Tipton, Josh Green, said the rule change threatened the private water rights of Western water users.<\/p>\n
\u201cImplementation of this overreaching rule has been halted by the courts, but there is still a need for concrete protections to be put into place to defend private water users from these types of federal takings,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit issued a nationwide stay on the WOTUS rule\u2019s implementation in October while it determines jurisdiction over challenges to the rule.<\/p>\n
Moving forward, Green said Tipton would continue to pursue his Water Rights Protection Act, introduced in the House last year as a way \u201dto protect private water rights and recognize priority-based systems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colorado senator vows to fight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[738,781,13,23,24,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-environmental-issue","tag-environmental-politics","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-u-s-rep-scott-tipton","tag-u-s-sen-cory-gardner","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107036"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}