West Virginia’s congressional delegation lashed out against President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday after the agency, along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, announced the final version of a rule that seeks to clarify what types of bodies of water can be protected by the government.

Proponents of the Clean Water Rule, which has also been called the Waters of the United States rule, say it was designed to allow the federal government to clarify and simplify which bodies of water can fall under protections outlined in the Clean Water Act, which was enacted in 1972.

The rule is estimated to affect the drinking water of 117 million Americans

Opponents, including many Republicans and all five of West Virginia’s congressmen, call the rule another example of the federal government’s overreach.

The new rule would kick in and force a permitting process only if a business or landowner took steps to pollute or destroy covered waters.

“The Clean Water Act has protected our health for more than 40 years — helped our nation clean up hundreds of thousands of miles of polluted waterways,” wrote Gina McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, in a blog post on Wednesday.

“But Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 threw protections into question for 60 percent of our nation’s streams and millions of acres of wetlands. Using the latest science, this rule clears up the confusion, providing greater certainty for the first time in more than a decade about which waters are important to protect.”

The White House has advocated for the implementation of the final rule, which is set to go into effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register.

“One in three Americans now gets drinking water from streams lacking clear protection, and businesses and industries that depend on clean water face uncertainty and delay, which costs our economy every day,” Obama said in a statement. “Too many of our waters have been left vulnerable to pollution. That’s why I called on the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clear up the confusion and uphold our basic duty to protect these vital resources.”

“With today’s rule, we take another step towards protecting the waters that belong to all of us,” he said.

The rule drew significant attention since initially being proposed in March 2014. Members of the public submitted more than one million comments, expressing both support and opposition to the rule.

Those opposing, including federal and state lawmakers, as well as farmers and other landowners, argue that the rule could now subject every stream, ditch and puddle on their private land to federal oversight.

Following the introduction of the rule, the American Farm Bureau created a website to outline their opposition and call citizens to action.

House Speaker John Boehner called the rules “a raw and tyrannical power grab” that would send “landowners, small businesses, farmers and manufacturers on the road to a regulatory and economic hell.”

Last October, six governors and 11 attorneys general, including West Virginia’s Patrick Morrisey, signed a letter that was sent to McCarthy and Secretary of the Army John McHugh.

The letter included several objections to the proposed rule, saying that it would create an overly broad definition of “navigable waters” and would place nearly every river, creek, stream and neighboring lands, under the jurisdiction of the EPA and the Corps of Engineers.

The letter also argued that the proposed rule violates the two agencies’ authority under the Clean Water Act.

“The rule is unlawful and yet another example of federal overreach,” Morrisey said on Wednesday. “The EPA and the Corps are trying to usurp the states’ role in monitoring and protecting local waterways and lands. My office will take prompt and forceful action to fight against this unlawful rule.”

In April, U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin were part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers to introduce the Water Quality Protection Act. The bill was seen as an alternative plan to the EPA’s proposed rule.

“This legislation would protect traditional navigable water from pollution while also protecting farmers, energy producers, small businesses and manufacturers,” Capito said on Wednesday.

Capito and Manchin vowed to continue to fight for the passage of the Water Quality Protection Act.

“I urge my colleagues to take immediate action on the bipartisan Water Quality Protection Act to rein in this harmful rule,” Manchin said.

Capito, who questioned McCarthy during a Congressional hearing in February that was focused on the proposed rule, said, “The final WOTUS rule announced today is deeply troubling. Rather than incorporating input from Congress and concerned Americans, this rule doubles down on overreach and threatens to impede small businesses, agriculture, and coal and natural gas production. There is no question that we want to protect our drinking water sources and our precious natural resources, but a rule that will subject puddles and ditches to regulation would lead to a massive expansion of costly permitting requirements.”

The rule also saw opposition from members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including Congressmen Evan Jenkins, David McKinley and Alex Mooney. On May 12, all three congressmen voted in favor of a bill that would require the EPA and the Corps of Engineers to withdraw the rule and rework it.

“The Waters of the United States rule is yet another attempt by the federal government to impose more regulations on West Virginians,” Jenkins said.

“I’ve visited West Virginia farms and seen what the EPA wants to regulate. These ditches and puddles only have water when it rains,” McKinley noted. “This is nothing more than an excuse for the EPA to expand its control over the lives of everyday West Virginians. It defies common sense to punish farmers and homeowners for something Mother Nature controls.”

Despite opposition from Morrisey and the state’s congressional delegation, several environmental organizations, including many West Virginians praised the final rule.

“This is a good day for water drinkers, river users and wildlife in West Virginia,” said West Virginia Rivers Coalition executive director Angie Rosser. “Our state’s headwater streams supply the drinking water sources for millions of people; this rule is important for the health of our communities and everyone downstream.”

Rosser said 54 percent of West Virginians get their drinking water from sources that rely on small streams that would be protected under the new rule.

Rosser, as well as Karan Ireland, development director of West Virginia Citizen Action Group, noted the importance of adopting the new rule in light of the 2014 chemical spill that affected thousands of Kanawha Valley residents.

“The clarification and protection offered by the Clean Water Rule should be a welcome relief to the ever-growing constituency of Americans who have had to scramble to find bottled water on empty grocery store shelves as the result of contamination or drought,” Ireland said.

“Politicians who seek to roll back these protections at the behest of special interest groups would do well to remember that there is no group larger than the group of us who drink water as if our lives depend upon it.”

Margie Alt, executive director with Environment America, called the rules “the biggest victory for clean water in a decade.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.