The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is increasingly mandating regulations that many people think are destructive to the economy of Louisiana while not providing any significant environmental benefit.

The latest example of possible EPA overreach is a proposed federal rule that would expand Washington’s control of waterways and wetlands.

The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority is taking issue with the proposed regulations and approved a resolution recently that asked the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rescind them or start over. The comment period for the proposal ended in November.

“It’s going to have a devastating effect on parishes throughout the state,” said John Young, Jefferson Parish president and member of the authority that helps guide coastal restoration and protection in the state.

He said Jefferson Parish alone has more than 40 miles of drainage canals and ditches that could be added to those areas to be regulated if the proposed rule goes through.

Many critics of these increasing environment regulations question if the Obama administration is legislating through EPA mandates what they can’t get through Congress. But the EPA maintains that the proposed rule doesn’t protect any new types of water under the Clean Water Act and doesn’t “expand jurisdiction over ditches.” The agency said what it is doing is just clarifying the kind of waters, such as wetlands and streams, protected by the act.

The EPA’s reasoning seems to be a distinction without a difference. It is claiming power that it hasn’t claimed before and which is adding on a massive scale ditches and canals it hadn’t been regulating before. It would seem clear that such a significant expansion of power should be authorized by Congress, and not just by a new rule.

Members of the Louisiana coastal authority are fearful it could force more permit applications into a system that is already slow, will cost state agencies more in oversight expenses and could end up with the feds regulating waters that aren’t currently regulated.

David Peterson, attorney with the authority, said looking at the maps that have been generated so far from the proposed regulations, the amount of water areas included are indeed more expansive.

The next Congress coming in to power in January, which is the 114th in this nation’s history, needs to clamp down on the EPA and reign it in if it does find it has been engaging in regulatory overreach.(MGNonline)