March 22, 2018
www.gfb.org
Vol. 36 No. 6
EPA ADMINISTRATOR PRUITT TO GFB: WATER UPDATE NEAR COMPLETION Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency is making progress toward rules that would provide farmers clarity on what constitutes a water of the United States under the Clean Water Act. The new rules would replace the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule developed by the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In accordance with an executive order from President Donald Trump early in 2017, the EPA repealed the WOTUS rule, and Pruitt said the agency is nearing the completion of a replacement rule. At the same time, the EPA is delaying compliance requirements to 2020 and beyond. Pruitt said the 2015 rule was so broad that drainage ditches, puddles and prairie potholes would all be considered waters of the U.S. under its jurisdiction. “I think traditionally ‘navigable’ water should mean something. That should be objectively measured. When we make Scott Pruitt jurisdictional determinations, the objective criteria by which we measure that is important. We don’t want people guessing,” Pruitt told Georgia Farm Bureau media after he spoke to GFB members on March 21 during GFB’s Annual County Presidents’ Trip to Washington, D.C. Georgia Farm Bureau has supported repealing the WOTUS rule since it was initially proposed in 2013. Pruitt alsoaddressed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), which was enacted to address hazardous waste like heavy metals and toxins entering the environment. Pruitt said it wasn’t intended to apply to farms and cattle, but courts have held farmers subject to CERCLA’s emissions reporting standards with respect to emissions from livestock. “To take that statute and then apply that to a farm, apply that to cattle out on a farm, it’s just wrong-headed. I don’t think the statute was intended to address that. So we’re trying to take steps internal to the agency, through regulatory action, that will provide clarity and protection. At some point it may be that Congress has to speak to this,” Pruitt said. -continued on next page