Dive Brief:

• Many contractors will groan if the Environmental Protection Agency succeeds in claiming it has the power to regulate activities — like construction — that impact water quality in brooks, ponds and other small bodies of water if they connect to larger ones.
• The agency has drafted regulations that it believes clarify its authority, but opponents argue that there is no authority to clarify.
• The issue has been in dispute since some Supreme Court rulings clouded the picture for how far upstream EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act reaches.

Dive Insight:

This is going to be a fight in 2014 in all likelihood. Opponents disagree with the EPA that there is scientific evidence that what happens in small water bodies affects the quality of water downstream in waterways where no one disputes federal authority. This is the latest iteration of a fight that has gone on for decades as advocates and opponents have argued over what protecting "navigable waters" should mean for federal authority.