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AFBF on court vacating NWPR
The American Farm Bureau is disappointed in this week’s federal court ruling that vacates the Trump administration’s clean water rule but is working to figure out how much weight it holds.
Farm Bureau’s senior public policy counsel Travis Cushman tells Brownfield Ag News, “Three courts previously refused to dismantle the Navigable Waters Protection Rule when they were asked to do so, most recently just last month. So it’s somewhat unclear where this will apply, what it means. This is something that we’re all trying very hard right now to figure out.”
Trout Unlimited, which applauds the Arizona judge’s ruling, says the Trump rule was illegal because it removed ephemeral streams from Clean Water Act protections. But Cushman says while “the Trump rule does keep ephemerals out of EPA jurisdiction – it is not out of state jurisdiction. It just simply draws the appropriate line of where federal jurisdiction ends and state jurisdiction begins or vice versa.”
Cushman says American Farm Farm Bureau will formally submit comments to the EPA and Army Corps Friday urging them to look closely at the clarity and certainty of the Trump rule – as they write a new rule – and urge them not to include ephemerals and ditches which were never intended to be regulated.
~Arizona Court cancels Trump Navigable Waters rule
