On July 25, 1975,¹ the Army Corps of Engineers promulgated interim final regulations governing the granting of permits for activities in United States inland and ocean waters, including, inter alia, the discharge of dredged and fill materials. The Corps' action came in response to a court order² invalidating the agency's previous rules that restricted its regulatory jurisdiction over the latter category of activities to "navigable waters" as traditionally defined. The order directed the Corps to shoulder its full regulatory responsibility under §§404 and 502(7)³ of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 which expanded such jurisdiction to all "waters of the United States."

The interim final rules differ significantly from any of the four alternative regulatory schemes proposed by the agency in May of this year,⁴ which result is at least partially attributable to the public furor generated by the Corps' misleading characterization of the proposals and the consequent deluge of public comments. EPA also worked closely with the Corps in developing the interim rules, and had a hand in shaping their ultimate form. The Corps' earlier recalcitrance toward full implementation of §404 was apparently turned around by the intercession of Assistant Secretary of the Army Victor V. Veysey, who stated in testimony before the House Public Works Subcommittee on Water Resources on July 15 that "[w]e must dispel fallacies that the Corps is proposing to regulate a farmer plowing his field or that the Corps is indifferent to destruction of our productive wetlands."