Administrative Competence

On February 29, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13778, Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism, and Economic Growth by Reviewing the 'Waters of the United States'."1 The purpose of this simultaneously ambitioussounding and dull-sounding Order was to demand the reconsideration of a 2015 regulation-the "Waters of the United States" rule, known as the "WOTUS" rule. The rule adopted a definition of the term "waters of the United States" that defined the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Water Act.2 On signing the Executive Order, Trump remarked "a few years ago the EPA decided that navigable waters can mean every puddle or every ditch...it was a massive power grab."3"--