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.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
EPA Replaces WOTUS with Navigable Waters Protection Rule
The troubled 2015 Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule introduced by the
Obama administration in 2015 to define which waters are regulated by the
Clean Water Act was officially replaced today by the Navigable Waters
Protection Rule. “EPA and the Army (Corps of Engineers) are providing much needed
regulatory certainty and predictability for American farmers, landowners
and businesses to support the economy and accelerate critical
infrastructure projects,” said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler
announcing the new rule on a press call. “After decades of landowners
relying on expensive attorneys to determine what water on their land may
or may not fall under federal regulations, our new Navigable Waters
Protection Rule strikes the proper balance between Washington and the
states in managing land and water resources while protecting our
nation’s navigable waters, and it does so within the authority Congress
provided.” The WOTUS rule was criticized by farm groups over vague language that
left farmers and landowners unable to determine whether their property
was regulated by the rule. And it was criticized by President Donald
Trump when he spoke to the American Farm Bureau Federation earlier this
week. “So, this rule gave bureaucrats virtually unlimited authority to
regulate stock tanks, drainage ditches and isolated ponds as navigable
waterways and navigable water,” he said. “You believe that? Sometimes
you'd have a puddle, a little puddle, and they’d consider that a lake.
As long as I'm President, government will never micromanage America's
farmers. EPA sought to clarify the edges of that regulatory authority in the new Navigable Waters Protection Rule. The new rule also spells out 12 specific exemptions from jurisdiction
under the Clean water act “including features that only contain water in
direct response to rainfall; groundwater; many ditches, including most
farm and roadside ditches; prior converted cropland; farm and stock
watering ponds; and waste treatment systems.”...MORE
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