The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) was disappointed with the first of 10 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stakeholder roundtables for waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) changes. AFBF President Zippy Duvall said the May 9 meeting lacked a diversity of experience in agriculture, and few participants had direct experience with Clean Water Act regulations.
Duvall called the roundtable a “missed opportunity” for EPA and said AFBF was urging the agency to seek out and listen to all viewpoints on the WOTUS matter.
“All farmers should be able to look out on their land and know what’s regulated, so we can continue to protect our natural resources while growing a sustainable food supply,” Duvall said in his blog, The Zipline.
“EPA’s proposed WOTUS rule instead casts uncertainty over farmers and ranchers across the country and threatens the progress we have made to responsibly manage water and natural resources.”
Duvall said the proposed rule would give the federal government the ability to regulate areas such as ditches, ephemeral drainages or low spots on farmlands and pastures that are not wet most of the year and do not connect to flowing waterways. This would subject agriculture to complex and burdensome regulations, he said.
“In theory, these meetings are designed to bring folks with different perspectives together to talk about regionally specific implementation concerns pertaining to WOTUS,” said Courtney Briggs, AFBF senior director of government affairs, in AFBF’s “Newsline” podcast.
“And the list of participants for this first roundtable was diverse on paper, but we are very concerned about the lack of diversity of experience on the panel.”
Briggs said there was a lack of mainstream agricultural representatives at the meeting, and there was no meaningful discussion of the law.
Duvall said it was no secret the AFBF was extremely disappointed in EPA’s decision to repeal the 2020 Navigable Waters Protection Rule, but if EPA is going to continue to go forward, they must ensure the process offers the opportunity for meaningful engagement and feedback from all stakeholders.
“Future roundtables must present the perspective of active farmers and be better organized and managed,” Duvall said. “Otherwise, EPA is doing nothing more than muddying the waters in this rulemaking.”
In June 2021, the EPA and Department of the Army announced their intention to revise the definition of WOTUS, and the agencies announced a proposed rule in November. The rule was published in the Federal Register in December 2021, and a public commenting period closed in February.
In late July 2021, EPA announced it would host 10 regionally focused roundtables to hear from stakeholders and discuss their experiences with implementing WOTUS. The next roundtable will take place on May 23, followed by the remainder of the roundtables in June. To view livestreams of the meetings, visit epa.gov/wotus. — Anna Miller,WLJ managing editor
