Ag Group Says New WOTUS Rule Not Clear

The American Farm Bureau Federation is disappointed with the recent actions of the Environmental Protection Agency in their recently released rewrite of the Waters of the US rule. Senior Government Affairs Director, Courtney Briggs says that the EPA failed to bring fairness to the agriculture industry.

“This was a real missed opportunity to write a voters rule that is fair to the regulated community and that is truly durable and the agencies have addressed the headline-grabbing aspects of the Supreme Court decisions like getting rid of the problematic significant Nexus tests, but they are trying to exploit aspects of the rule in order to expand their jurisdictional reach.”

Plus, she says the new rewrite does not offer clarity or certainty.

“With the Sackett decision, the agencies are still trying to be vague and amorphous with their policies which equate to continued confusion and lack of certainty for landowners. So we have long called for a durable rule, but this rulemaking completely misses the mark.”

On that note, Briggs points out that farmers and ranchers should know the WOTUS rules for the state in which they live.

The challenge now is to make sure our members understand the rules in the specific states that they live in, because there's still litigation that has enjoined the 2023 WOTUS rule in 27 states. So that is really our focus right now is to make sure that our members are well equipped to adapt to this new rulemaking,

American Farm Bureau Federation's Courtney Briggs.