The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers haven't ruled out the option of withdrawing a non-binding interpretive rule that outlines agricultural conservation practices that would be exempt from Clean Water Act dredge-and-fill permits due to the confusion it has caused among farmers and ranchers, an Agriculture Department official said Dec. 3.
“It is one of the options that is being considered,” Jason Weller, chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, told Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the ranking member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.
The committee convened the hearing to examine voluntary approaches by farmers and ranchers to improve water and soil quality.
Roberts, who will take over as the committee chairman when the 114th Congress convenes in January, asked Weller why the agencies even chose to single out 56 conservation practices as being exempt when the Clean Water Act already exempts all normal agricultural and silvicultural practices from a requirement to obtain Section 404 dredge-and-fill permits.
Weller deferred to the EPA and the corps on the need to issue the interpretive rule, saying they are reviewing the 1 million or so comments received on the waters of the U.S. proposed rule...more
Weller then testifies:
At the same time, Weller defended the agencies, saying “their intent was
good, but unfortunately a lot of concerns were raised,” and much
confusion has ensued as a result of the conservation practices that were
identified in the interpretive rule.
Their intent was good? And the only reason they may withdraw that section is because all of us country rubes are "confused"?
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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