Federal regulation of waterways may not be the first issue that comes to mind in a desert state like Arizona, but don’t tell that to Pima County cattle rancher Jim Chilton. Chilton was one of two Arizonans invited to testify Wednesday on the Waters of the United States rule, an Obama administration plan to streamline […]
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt found a friendly audience Thursday in his native Kentucky as he lambasted an Obama-era clean-water rule. Speaking to a Kentucky Farm Bureau audience, Pruitt said the rule aimed at protecting small streams and wetlands from development and pollution was an example of federal overreach. He said it tried to […]
The top Republican on the House science panel’s environment subcommittee says there are “bubbling, nascent discussions” on potential legislation to limit the reach of the Clean Water Act (CWA), but any such bill could be far off despite subcommittee members voicing support for restricting the law’s scope during a Nov. 29 hearing. Speaking to Inside […]
Everyone agrees that we need clean air and clean water; still, West Virginians should not be forced to choose between economic prosperity and a clean environment. We expect both. That is why federal environmental laws like the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air Act provide for cooperation between federal authorities and state officials. This […]
Last month, the Trump administration rolled back the birth-control mandate. Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the Waters of the United States rule will suffer a similar fate. “We’re providing regulatory clarity there,” Mr. Pruitt said at the conference Friday. “Two-step process, actually: We’re withdrawing the deficient rule from 2015. That process […]
The Environmental Protection Agency is looking to delay the start date for the Obama administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule for two years, giving the agency and the Army Corps of Engineers more time to reconsider a key definition that is at the heart of litigation opposing the regulation. “This step will allow us to […]
When President Trump entered the office earlier this year, regulatory burdens was a top concern for U.S. producers. His 2-for-1 regulatory rollback (eliminating two regulations for every one proposed) he announced early on in his term and actions on top-of-mind concerns such as WOTUS are getting high marks. In our August survey, 86% of those […]
Trump’s executive actions include rescinding the Environmental Protection Agency’s “waters of the United States” rule, which critics credibly argued was so broad it would have allowed the federal government to treat drainage ditches in arid land as a regulated body of navigable water. Even Democratic members of the House and the Senate publicly opposed the […]
Imagine being a farmer and not knowing whether you can plow part of your land out of fear that federal bureaucrats will decide you would be violating the Clean Water Act. For farmer John Duarte, this was his reality. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, claiming Duarte’s plowing created furrows that were mini-uplands and “small […]
The 2015 WOTUS rule attempted to clarify which wetlands and waterways are covered by the Clean Water Act. For farmers and ranchers, however, the 2015 rule provided no clarity or certainty. Instead, through vague and overly broad definitions of terms such as “tributary,” “adjacent” and “significant nexus,” the 2015 rule made it extremely difficult for […]