Ag Policy Blog

Final WOTUS may be Released this Week

Todd Neeley
By  Todd Neeley , DTN Staff Reporter
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to release the final waters of the United States rule this week, the New York Times, http://tinyurl.com/…, reported Monday in a piece that documents how the agency conducted a grassroots campaign to build support for a rule that has been widely unpopular across the country.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy raised eyebrows across farm country when earlier this spring she testified before Congress that nearly 90% of some one million comments received during a public comment period, favored the proposed rule. Of course, short of hiring an extensive staff of your own to page through the comments, it would be virtually impossible to prove her wrong.

That's at the heart of the concerns raised by EPA's public campaign on the rule: the agency claims broad, overwhelming support for the rule while not holding a single public hearing anywhere across the Corn Belt or other regions where farmers could be hardest hit by the rule.

It begs the question: what percentage of the American public would support the rule had EPA held regional public hearings across the country?

When EPA released the proposed rule it then launched a social media campaign that not only included attempting to build public support for the rule, but the agency was aggressive in countering the #ditchtherule campaign put forward by the American Farm Bureau Federation and a number of other groups across the economy.

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House Republicans and others alleged EPA had violated federal law by campaigning for support for a rule for which it was seeking public comment.

Even the left-leaning New York Times went so far as to suggest EPA's efforts were a violation of federal lobbying laws.

"In a campaign that tests the limits of federal lobbying law, the agency orchestrated a drive to counter political opposition from Republicans and enlist public support in concert with liberal environmental groups and a grass-roots organization aligned with President Obama," the Times reports.

"The Obama administration is the first to give the EPA a mandate to create broad public outreach campaigns, using the tactics of elections, in support of federal environmental regulations before they are final."

Based on our reporting the EPA is likely to face a number of lawsuits on the rule.

A number of actions taken in Congress in the past six months have been aimed at writing legislation to force EPA to withdraw the rule. That effort continued on Tuesday as a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works subcommittee held a hearing on S1140, "the Federal Water Quality Protection Act." There have been a number of other legislative efforts made in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to turn back EPA.

Susan Metzger, assistant secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, told the Senate committee Tuesday that her state supports S1140 because it would re-establish what she said is the state/federal partnership on regulating waters. Some 30 states have come out in opposition of the rule along with all of the major agriculture industry groups.

All along EPA has maintained the waters of the United States rule is needed to provide protection to waters that are unprotected. However, throughout the debate on the rule states have repeated time and again how successful state efforts have been to protect waters.

After covering numerous hearings, reading all the news releases filling up the inbox, reading all the news accounts, it would be easy to conclude supporters of the rule have been virtually silent.

If there is indeed broad support for the rule, right now the minority opposition has the loudest voice.

Follow me on Twitter @toddneeleyDTN

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tom vogel
5/19/2015 | 10:14 AM CDT
Well, if this covers every little creek, stream, waterway, and ditch, then our wonderful farms are going to be turned into wildlife refuges and we will be importing corn and soybeans from Brazil. That will end once we fall into financial abyss and then we become a third-world country. All of this while the rest of the world develops modern agricultural excellence. Thank you Secretary McCarthy. There is a reason the she never showed up in the Corn Belt to peddle her wares - she would be run out of town. Citing Pogo: "I have spotted the enemy...and he is we."