Another Court Reins in EPA's WOTUS Overreach

The Rule of Law Prevails Over Regulatory Overreach

A federal court has once again reminded the Environmental Protection Agency that the Clean Water Act is not an open-ended license to regulate every drop of moisture that touches American soil. On May 25, 2026, the court struck down the Biden administration's revised Waters of the United States rule, sending a clear signal that administrative agencies cannot rewrite federal law by bureaucratic fiat. For Texans, ranchers, farmers, and property owners across the republic, the ruling is not merely a procedural victory. It is a restoration of the constitutional principle that lawmaking power resides in Congress, not in the cubicles of unelected regulators.

The WOTUS rule has long been a textbook example of federal overreach dressed in green packaging. First expanded aggressively under the Obama administration, narrowed under President Trump, then expanded again under President Biden, the rule has treated navigable waters as a launching pad for control over dry creek beds, isolated ponds, drainage ditches, and even low spots that hold water only after a heavy rain. The statute that the EPA claims to enforce was passed by Congress in 1972. It says nothing about stock tanks in the Hill Country or prairie potholes in the Panhandle. Yet for more than a decade, landowners have been told they must seek federal permission to move dirt on their own property because a bureaucrat decided the land was somehow connected to a navigable waterway.

The judiciary has finally had enough. The Supreme Court laid the groundwork in May 2023, when it issued its unanimous 9-to-0 decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. The Court held that the Clean Water Act covers only wetlands that have a continuous surface connection to navigable waters, and it rejected the EPA's preferred test, which would have allowed regulation of virtually any wet feature in the country. That decision should have ended the debate. Instead, the agency spent the following years trying to preserve as much authority as possible through revised definitions and creative geography. The recent federal court ruling closes that loophole and returns the matter to its statutory boundaries.

The Economic Cost of Federal Water Grab

Regulation is never free, and the WOTUS rule imposed staggering costs on Americans who do nothing more than own land and grow food. Under the rule as it was enforced, a landowner who wanted to fill a small depression, build a fence, or expand a barn could face years of federal permitting, environmental reviews, and legal fees. The National Association of Home Builders estimated that duplicative federal wetland regulations added tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of ordinary home construction in affected areas. For family farms and ranches operating on thin margins, those costs could mean the difference between passing the operation to the next generation and selling out to a corporate consolidator.

The agricultural community felt the burden most acutely. In Texas alone, the revised WOTUS definition would have brought an estimated tens of millions of acres under federal jurisdiction, including land that has been farmed and ranched for generations. The EPA's own documents acknowledged that the rule would expand federal oversight to ephemeral streams and isolated waters that contribute no measurable flow to navigable rivers. The permits required under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act can cost individual landowners thousands of dollars and take more than a year to obtain. Multiply that across thousands of small farms, and the result is a regulatory tax on American food production.

The damage extended beyond agriculture. Energy infrastructure, road building, and municipal drainage projects all faced heightened uncertainty. When a pipeline company or county government cannot say with confidence whether a dry ditch is a federally protected water, projects stall, financing grows more expensive, and communities wait longer for the infrastructure they need. The rule did not protect the nation's great rivers. It empowered regulators to treat the entire hydrological cycle as a federal waterway, with private citizens left to bear the compliance burden.

Restoring Constitutional Boundaries

This case is about more than water. It is about whether the administrative state may keep expanding its authority until the limits of the Constitution become suggestions. Article I of the Constitution vests all legislative power in Congress, not in executive agencies. The Clean Water Act gives the federal government authority to regulate navigable waters. It does not give the EPA authority to regulate the mud puddle in a schoolyard or the stock pond behind a ranch house. When courts enforce that distinction, they are not anti-environment. They are pro-law.

Property rights are not a conservative fetish. They are the foundation of a free economy and a limited government. If the federal government can declare a dry wash a water of the United States, then there is no meaningful limit to what it can declare. The Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause requires just compensation when the government restricts the use of private land. The WOTUS rule achieved by regulation what would require compensation by statute, leaving landowners with a choice between compliance costs and litigation costs. That is not environmental stewardship. It is legalized confiscation.

The federal court's ruling should be celebrated, but it should not be the final word. Congress ought to clarify once and for all that navigable waters means navigable waters in fact, and that federal jurisdiction ends where the continuous surface connection ends. The states, including Texas, retain both the authority and the incentive to protect their own water resources. Landowners have a direct stake in preserving the aquifers, creeks, and rivers that sustain their operations. Local stewardship, enforced by state law and private responsibility, is more responsive and more accountable than one-size-fits-all mandates from Washington.

Dr. Catherine Ashford writes on constitutional law, property rights, and the proper limits of federal power.