The farm bill is now finished business and for the most part all parties seem content. Also, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) filed new rules that clarify the poorly written rules from the Obama administration. The House of Representative are trying to finish their unfinished business before they run out of time.
The farm bill gave the livestock industry their vaccine bank to stockpile various vaccines if something major breaks out in the U.S. Hoof-and-mouth disease is currently the major focus. Let’s hope we never have to use it, but it makes me feel better that we’re prepared.
Western ranchers and communities did however get the short stick in the last-minute negotiations in the farm bill; the Forestry title was removed in lieu of more nutrition assistance coverage. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) made the changes to take Western forest management issues out of the bill.
It’s somewhat remarkable after such a devastating fire season in the West that mitigation funding was pulled. President Donald Trump made a big issue over better forest management a couple weeks ago and it felt like we were going to get some traction on active forest management.
The NCBA was fairly pleased about completion of the farm bill, however the Public Lands Council was very disappointed with the bill. Ethan Lane, executive director, said, “The 2018 Farm Bill negotiators elected to advance a bill that abandoned Western communities by stripping away all provision for responsible forest management. The Agriculture Committee’s decision to abdicate its oversight of our nation’s forest resources speaks volumes about the need for the U.S. Forest Service to be moved out of agriculture and towards the natural resources community where it might have a fighting chance. It is unacceptable for conferees to simply take a pass on forestry and abandon Americans impacted by catastrophic wildfire.” Additionally, “to add insult to injury, conferees retained a reckless provision formalizing the Watershed Condition Framework and directing forest supervisors to redirect precious resources away from critical wildfire management and toward meaningless inventories designed to placate radical environmental groups. They will be forced to inventory all water resources on U.S. Forest Service ground.”
Other items dropped include: a prairie dog impact study on grazing allotments and corrective action; consultation under the Endangered Species Act to expedite projects; and vacant grazing allotment availability to certain grazing permit holders if affected by natural disaster. Every categorical exclusion authority aimed at wildfire prevention was deleted—expired critical response actions, expedited salvage operations in response to catastrophic events, hazardous trees, and improvements or restoration of national forests to reduce the risk of wildfire on public lands.
Ethan Lane is right. It’s time to get the Forest Service out of agriculture and into a natural resource agency like BLM with oversight by the natural resource committees in the Senate and House. The farm bill has always been a big grab bag for various projects. The agriculture community accounts for about 15 percent of the farm bill price tag. And nutrition assistance receives the bulk. We need specialists to deal with farm issues and quit appeasing the urban legislators with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program inside the farm bill.
Now we may have new rules for Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS). EPA and the Corps proposed new rules that would define the Obama-era proposals, which were highly contested in various states. This new proposal makes it simpler to determine what is protected water.
The agencies spent quite a bit of time with stakeholders to come up with common sense definitions. They cite specific examples of a covered ditch, which most do not qualify as covered water. Their example of a covered ditch was the Erie Canal. So, your irrigation ditch isn’t a covered waterway.
The agencies invited pre-proposal recommendations and received over 6,000 responses, which were considered in developing this proposed rule.
This is a much better definition for the Clean Water Act. However, since it’s been tied up in the courts since 2015, I would expect that some environmental groups will have an uncontrollable response and file a suit. Simply because that’s what they do for a living. There will be a 60-day comment period after it is filed in the Federal Register. — PETE CROW
