It’s Time to Ditch The Rule
Puddles, ponds, ditches, ephemerals (land that looks like a small stream during heavy rain but isn’t wet most of the time) and isolated wetlands dot the nation’s farmland. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) on March 25 issued a proposed rule that would expand its regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to these types of land features and waters, giving the agencies the power to dictate land-use decisions and farming practices in or near them. The rule will make it more difficult to farm or change a farming operation to remain competitive and profitable.
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Comment on the Proposed Rule
Tell EPA and the Corps to
DITCH THE RULE!
FEATURED
Let’s read the fine print
Recently, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for water questioned the validity of concerns raised by the American Farm Bureau Federation and others regarding the proposed Waters of the U.S. rule.
Let’s take a look at EPA’s comments together.
Does EPA have the right to do what it is proposing?
EPA clearly thinks it does, but the Supreme Court has said in two separate decisions that there are limits to EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act. If the agency can regulate every water body from the largest to the smallest, and even those areas that aren’t wet most of the time, as it is proposing in this rule, then there are effectively no limits to the agency’s regulatory reach.
What will actually be different under the proposed rule?
EPA claims in its promotional materials that it is not broadening coverage of the Clean Water Act. However, the details of the rule itself say otherwise.
How will those waters be protected if EPA doesn’t regulate them?
EPA’s implication that only the federal government is capable of protecting small bodies of water is not supported by science or facts, and EPA certainly has not provided any evidence to support that assertion.
Stop EPA Overreach, Farm Bureau’s Stallman Tells Congress
“It threatens local land-use and zoning authority, and is an end-run around Congress and the Supreme Court.”
EPA says it will exempt farmers from the rule, so why are they concerned?
First, the exemptions are extremely narrow. They only apply to one part of the CWA, the section 404 “dredge and fill” permit program. The rule provides no protection from enforcement over other activities, such as weed control, fertilizer applications and any number of other common farm activities that may trigger CWA liability and permit requirements.
