CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — Two key West Virginia leaders praised a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday that creates a stricter test for when the Environmental Protection Agency can step in to say wetlands can’t be touched.

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, both Republicans, praised the decision by the justices in Sackett vs. EPA.

“Today, the Supreme Court sent a loud and clear warning shot to the Biden administration about its attempts to overregulate the lives of millions of Americans. By rejecting the ‘significant nexus’ test, the court protected America’s farmers, ranchers, builders and landowners from overreach under the Clean Water Act, and ruled President Biden’s recent WOTUS [Waters of the United States] rule goes too far,” Capito said.

Morrisey agreed.

“We now have a clearer definition for Waters of the United States, and we’re pleased the Supreme Court ruled in a way that state lands and waters are less subject to the whims of unelected bureaucrats. The EPA’s confused, convoluted and overbroad understanding of wetlands subject to its regulation would have been costly to property owners who would have spent years and tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars just getting permission from the federal regulators to build on their own property,” he said.

“We are also happy to see the Court reject EPA’s request for deference to its misguided new ‘waters of the United States’ rule, which we have led a coalition in challenging. The Supreme Court has now agreed with what we successfully said there: EPA’s new rule is ‘inconsistent with the text and structure’ of the Clean Water Act.’”

“Today is a big day for farmers, homebuilders, contractors, property owners and those who care about economic activity not being subject to overreach by the federal government,” Attorney General Morrisey added. “Next, we will continue our successful fight by taking down the new Biden rulemaking.”

“The Environment Protection Agency continues to fight a losing battle – unnecessary government regulation on private lands and waters,” said Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va. “The Biden Administration should heed this warning from the Supreme Court and withdraw their overbearing WOTUS rule. The American people deserve better than these unworkable rules that freeze infrastructure development, hurt investment in housing, agriculture, and energy, and completely disregard private property rights.”

In Sackett, the Supreme Court embraced the “relatively permanent” test previously described in a plurality opinion from Justice Scalia: “In sum, we hold that the CWA (Clean Water Act) extends to only those “wetlands with continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,” so that they are “indistinguishable” from those waters.

According to CBS News, The Sackett case involved an Idaho couple who started the process of building a house only to have the EPA tell them to decide the land they were building on was wetlands — the home couldn’t be built there, and the land would have to be restored.