Posted March 20, 2015
Farmers
and leaders from agriculture and government agencies expressed their concerns
about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed Waters
of the United States (WOTUS) rule at a House Agriculture Conservation and
Forestry Subcommittee, according to an Agri-Pulse article available here.
Brownfield Ag News also published an article here
and Hoosier Ag Today here.
Members on
one panel spoke on behalf of the National Association of State Departments of
Agriculture, National Association of Counties, National Association of State
Foresters and Association of Clean Water Administrators.
A second
panel included representatives of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the
Waters Advocacy Coalition, and the Pennsylvania Rural Electric Association, and
farmers raising crops and livestock in Mississippi and Illinois.
Steve
Foglesong, an Illinois livestock and crop farmer, said his main concern is the
rule’s lack of clarity, according to Brownfield
Ag News.
“We hear
about exemptions that are there but until we’ve seen it in print—and probably
more importantly, seen it in action—we’re not going to understand exactly how
it’s supposed to affect us,” said Foglesong.
EPA
Administrator Gina McCarthy told the National Farmers Union that she is
renaming the Waters of the U.S. rule the Clean Water Rule, according to Hoosier
Ag Today.
McCarthy
said that she wishes EPA would have done a better job with its Clean Water Rule
by calling it WOTUS instead of the Clean Water Rule, being more clear about what
EPA was and was not proposing, and talking to farmers and others before EPA put
out the interpretive rule.
For more information on the Clean Water Act, please visit
the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
