A recent U.S. Senate committee report details the potential federal overreach of codifying the much-debated “Waters of the United States,” or WOTUS. The codification, which has been stayed right now because of litigation, would give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers more power to regulate the land of citizens, opponents of the rules charge.

The federal government will have the ability to consider plowed land “mini mountain ranges,” regulate discing with permits, prevent farmers from changing from one agricultural commodity to another and rename tire ruts “disturbed wetlands,” under the potential federal regulations, according to the report.

James Comer, former Kentucky agriculture commissioner and Republican candidate for Kentucky’s 1st District congressional seat, said he hears a lot about WOTUS from people he meets on the campaign trail.

“It is a perfect example of what President (Barack) Obama and the liberal Democrats have done to business the past eight years – they have over regulated it to death,” Comer said.

The report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Republican majority staff released Sept. 20 says landowners will not be able to rely on long-standing exemptions regarding land use for farming.

“These case studies demonstrate that assurances given by the EPA and the Corps regarding the scope of the WOTUS rule and its exemptions to the positions taken by these agencies in jurisdictional determinations and in litigation are factually false,” said the 38-page report from the staff of U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe R-Okla., who chairs the committee. No Kentucky U.S. senators serve on the committee.

The report’s conclusion claims that the EPA and the Corps “will continue to advance very broad claims of jurisdiction based on discretionary authority to define their own jurisdiction.”

Some U.S. senators attempted to override the veto of Obama regarding WOTUS in January, but fell eight votes short of an override.

“I applaud Chairman Inhofe for his leadership on the issue,” U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an email Friday.

“WOTUS isn’t really a clean-water measure, it’s an unprecedented federal power grab clumsily masquerading as one. In passing a bipartisan measure to overturn it, Congress stood up for the Middle Class and said that America’s clean-water rules should be based on the kind of scientific, collaborative process the American people expect – not Washington politics. 

“Apparently the President disagrees. He had a choice between standing with the Middle Class or standing with Washington bureaucrats, he chose the bureaucrats when he vetoed the legislation,” McConnell wrote.

Even before the veto override battle, a federal appeals court stepped into the fray.

In October 2015, the U.S. Sixth District Court of Appeals issued a nationwide stay of the WOTUS rule. The fight is anticipated to eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Comer said Friday it is plain that the federal bureaucrats writing the rules have never disced a field and have never grown an agriculture crop.

“They are trying to regulate farmers, who are the ultimate environmentalists,” Comer said.

If the U.S. Senate had attained the 60 votes, the legislation’s final passage would have required a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress. The Clean Water Rule or “Waters of the United States” was made final in 2015.

Comer said farmers’ organizations have done a good job getting the word out about the potential of WOTUS.

“People see what the EPA did to the coal industry. Now it is a war on family farmers.”

— Follow business reporter Charles A. Mason on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.