EPA turned a page on its Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) summer calendar today, as the agency finished its six of 10 scheduled roundtables.
The fifth roundtable, held last week with the Kansas Livestock Association, revealed murky waters in the WOTUS definition, according to Mary Thomas Hart, environmental council at National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA).
“If we’ve learned anything, it’s that there are a lot of varied opinions on what should be considered water of the U.S.,” Hart told Chip Flory, AgriTalk host.
This murky water stems from an issue in ephemeral features, which Hart describes as features that only carry water after a precipitation event like a hard rain or snowmelt.
Hart says the ag community pleaded with the Obama administration to provide clarity and regulatory certainty in the definition of WOTUS, which resulted in Obama “regulating everything.”
According to Hart, the shift in regulations caused an expansion of the Clean Water Act authority, which was later removed through the Trump administration’s Navigable Waters Protection rule. At that point, the ephemeral features were no longer ruled by federal jurisdiction.
This push and pull of ephemeral jurisdiction will continue with the Biden administration, according to Hart.
“Instead of making it clear that ephemeral features are not regulated or saying that all features are jurisdictional, the features are going to be subject to a case-by-case determination,” she says. “This gets us back to square one as far as a real lack of regulatory certainty for agricultural producers.”
House Ag Republicans Respond
On Monday, various Congressmen issued a letter to President Biden addressing many issues in ag, including the desired reversal of the Biden administration’s WOTUS changes that have “plunged producers into a regulatory red tape nightmare.”
The letter states the administration’s WOTUS rule creates “enormous” uncertainty for farmers, ranchers and landowners due to the “vague” definition of federal waterways and what is considered navigable, which the Republicans say has resulted in “land grabs by the government.”
The Navigable Waters Protection Rule was the answer to WOTUS uncertainty, according to the Congressmen. They ask the Biden administration to reverse its WOTUS position to “allow the overall objective of the Clean Water Act to be realized: to restore and maintain the integrity of the nation’s navigable waters.”
More on WOTUS:
WOTUS Roundtable Reveals Potential Runoff Management Flaws in the Midwest
Zippy Duvall: Labor is Biggest Limiting Factor for American Agriculture
