National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn issued this statement following the release of the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Clean Water Rule, which will expand federal regulatory jurisdiction over waters of the United States (WOTUS) and expose energy and mineral development to additional permitting delays, threaten economic development and put high-wage jobs at risk:
“We remain deeply concerned that the promised clarity from this rule comes at the steep price of more federal interference with state, local and private land use decisions. The U.S. federal permitting process is among the slowest, most costly and inefficient systems in the world. This rule faces a high hurdle in convincing us that the permitting process will improve now that only the most tenuous connections form the basis for imposing federal requirements on top of existing state protections.”