New EPA guidance on water rules angers agricultural organizations

Agricultural organizations are up in arms over new guidance documents issued last week that would allow the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers to regulate private bodies of water. Actually, the guidelines reverse U.S. Supreme Court decisions and circumvent the lawmaking process as intended by U.S. Congress and the U.S. Constitution, said Joe Parker, Jr., a rancher and president of TSCRA. Parker said the Clean Water Jurisdiction Guidance would negatively affect ranchers by giving the federal government unprecedented regulatory authority over water bodies such as stock tanks, drainage ditches, ponds, small and intermittent streams, creek beds, playa lakes and mud holes. Additionally, it could ultimately require ranchers to obtain federal permits and would allow the federal government to come on private property for inspections. The permits and enforcement would make it necessary for ranchers to hire engineers and attorneys to guide them through the permitting process and defend themselves against unnecessary federal regulation, according to TSCRA...more