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Zeldin Makes the EPA's Water Policy Announcement on Waters of the United States, Mar. 13, 2025

March 13, 2025 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 0:45:36

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the agency’s water policy announcement at EPA headquarters on March 13, 2025, opening the process to fix the definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) once and for all, as he put it. Zeldin said senators had pressed him during his confirmation process — on behalf of farmers, ranchers and other landowners — to pursue a definition that is, as he stated the goal, simple, durable and able to withstand the test of time, ending what he described as the ping-ponging of the rule between administrations.

He grounded the approach in the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision, which he summarized as holding that only wetlands with a continuous surface connection to a relatively permanent water are jurisdictional, and as striking down the long-used significant-nexus test. The event — introduced by Senior Advisor Jess Kramer and attended by federal and state partners, Army Corps representatives and farm and business stakeholders, as the upload shows — heard from senators and landowner representatives who described, as they stated them, the permitting burdens the shifting definitions had imposed, and closed with Zeldin’s statement that the rulemaking the agency is initiating must be totally consistent with Sackett.

Why it matters

WOTUS decides which wetlands and waterways fall under federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction — and therefore which farms, ranches and building projects need federal permits. A durable, Sackett-consistent definition was Zeldin’s stated confirmation pledge to the Senate, and this announcement is its starting gun.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the WOTUS rulemaking Zeldin initiated on March 13, 2025, against his stated test — a simple, durable definition consistent with Sackett. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Makes Water Policy Announcement” (Mar. 13, 2025, embedded above; remarks as delivered by Administrator Zeldin, Senior Advisor Jess Kramer, and the event’s speakers).