US EPA and Army Corps Issue Long-Awaited Proposed WOTUS Rule

On November 20, 2025, the US EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers published the long-awaited proposed rule revising the regulatory definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), the key term in the Clean Water Act that determines the jurisdictional reach of the Act. 

The proposed rule revises the 2023 WOTUS rule promulgated under the Biden Administration to align it with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sacket v. EPA, 598 U.S. 651 (2023). The US EPA notes the proposed rule is intended to fully implement the Court’s direction by ensuring federal jurisdiction is focused on relatively permanent, standing, or continuously flowing bodies of water – such as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes – and wetlands that are connected and indistinguishable from such waterbodies. In Sackett, Justice Alito, writing for a 5-4 majority, found that only wetlands that are “indistinguishable” from adjacent jurisdictional waterbodies based on a continuous, “relatively permanent” surface connection with allowances for “temporary interruptions” in that connection constitute WOTUS.

The new proposed rule defines “relatively permanent” waters as those bodies of surface water that are standing or continuously flowing year-round, or at least during the wet season. “Continuous surface connection” is defined to include those waters that have surface water at least during the wet season and those abutting or touching a jurisdictional water. The proposed rule also clarifies key exclusions, including ditches, prior converted cropland, and certain waste treatment systems, and adds an exclusion for groundwater.

The US EPA is accepting comments on the proposed rule through January 5, 2026.