While testifying before the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday, July 22, 2009, farm interest groups expressed their concern that expanding the scope of the Clean Water Act will create serious regulatory problems for farmers and ranchers and could lead to a slew of new lawsuits against agriculture producers.As the Farm Futures’ website reports, Jim Chilton, who was testifying on behalf of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council, argued that removing the word “navigable” from the current Clean Water Act ‘“would open the door to lawsuits for every human use, allowing radical environmentalist to stop or seriously delay any rancher or farmer's improvement project anywhere in the nation.”’
The legislation, entitled the Clean Water Restoration Act (CWRA) would essentially give the federal government authority over every watershed if the phrase “navigable waterways,” which describes the types of waterways currently under federal jurisdiction, is removed from the statute as it currently stands. Such action would give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), the entities charged with enforcing the current law, regulatory power over all inter-state and intra-state waters. To read the Farm Futures story click here.
The bill passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last month. As the Cattle Network website writes, the bill could create a regulatory headache for farmers and ranchers, ‘“Considering U.S. farmers and ranchers own and manage approximately 666.4 million acres of the 1.938 billion acres of the contiguous U.S. land mass, the massive new permitting requirements under this Act would be an unmanageable burden for the government, and could literally bring farming operations to a standstill.”’ To read the Cattle Network’s story on the legislation click here.
To read the testimony submitted to the House Small Business Committee click here and then click on the name of the witness whose testimony you care to read. Click here for Committee Chairwoman Velazquez’s opening statement. To see the American Farm Bureau Federation’s press release on the hearing click here. To read the NCBA’s press release click here.
Posted: 07/23/09
