Collins Votes to Stop EPA From What He Calls a “Land Grab”

9th District U.S. Representative Doug Collins, calling proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations a “land grab,” voted recently for a House bill to prevent the agency from expanding its power under the Clean Water Act.

Collins said that the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act of 2015 would require the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw their proposal to regulate even puddles and ditches within 30 days.

Calling the Ninth District Georgia’s agricultural heartland, Collins said that as a result of this rule, poultry houses could be forced to relocate, cattle could be forced into smaller pastures, and farmers’ acreage could shrink dramatically.

Representative Collins said that not only farmers would suffer the consequences of a re-definition of “navigable waterways” to include rain runoff, potentially.

He said that under the proposed rule “any puddle on private property, urban or rural, could become the domain of EPA bureaucrats.”

The EPA said opponents of the proposed rule are overreacting.