The president has acted quickly to remove regulations that were stifling the coal industry. He signed legislation to overturn the costly Stream Protection Rule within one month of his inauguration and issued an executive order two weeks later reviewing the Waters of the United States rule. The next month, the president featured coal workers prominently […]
To the crowd of miners he specifically discussed his efforts and those of Congress in concert with the Trump administration to roll back environmental regulations that he says were often intended to stymie resource industries. Sullivan cited the repeal of the Army Corps of Engineers 2015 wetlands jurisdiction update known as the Waters of the […]
The president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, Blake Hurst, says Josh Hawley’s victory over Democratic incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill was “a tremendous win for rural Missouri.” Hurst says Hawley is more in line with Farm Bureau’s stance on regulatory issues, including the Waters of the U.S. rule. “Senator McCaskill was not a supporter of our position […]
Three states, along with the American Farm Bureau Federation, asked a federal court in Texas on Thursday to vacate the 2015 waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule in the latest in a long series of court actions. In separate motions filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Galveston, […]
A 2015 rule that expands the federal government’s control over private land nationwide should be vacated in its entirety, attorneys argued in papers filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and a broad coalition of business groups, along with the state of Texas and others, […]
Most prominent in EPA’s water agenda are its newly updated timelines for EPA and the Corps’ joint rules to repeal and replace Obama-era standards for determining which waterbodies are subject to the CWA. The repeal, first proposed in 2017 and followed by a “supplemental” comment period in June, is now targeted for final action in March […]
Banks said his congressional accomplishments include being named one of three Republican finalists in the House and Senate for a constituent service award; being among 13 freshman lawmakers to have a bill signed into law; helping lead efforts to suspend the medical device tax; having a hangar at Fort Wayne’s Smith Field designated this month […]
The future of the 2015 waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule may be decided in a district court in Georgia, as the American Farm Bureau Federation and supporters of the Obama-era rule have asked a court there to decide on its merits. For the past three years, the WOTUS rule has been hung up by dozens of lawsuits […]
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler says the agency within 30 days will unveil its proposal for a new “clean and straightforward” Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction standard that follows the water law and confusing Supreme Court precedent, and which is expected to be narrower in scope than the Obama-era rule it will replace. “As we’re moving forward on waters of […]
The election of President Trump seemed to spell relief for those concerned about WOTUS’s overreach. Soon after being sworn into office, the President announced his intention to rescind WOTUS and replace it with a more reasonable regulation. The new regulation would be tailored to provide legal clarity without overreaching the federal government’s jurisdiction. The […]