The Hill
"Lawmakers are up in arms over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that they fear could give federal officials expansive new powers over private property and farmland.
"The EPA is seeking to redefine what bodies of water fall under the agency’s jurisdiction for controlling pollution. The scope of the final Clean Water Act (CWA) rule is of critical importance, as any area covered would require a federal permit for certain activities.
"The rule is facing a groundswell of opposition from lawmakers, who fear the EPA is engaged in a “land grab” that could stop farmers and others from building fences, digging ditches or draining ponds." Read more...
EPA's rules destroy our property rights "As American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman testified to Congress last month, “The proposal … categorically regulates as ‘navigable waters’ countless ephemeral drains, ditches and other features across the countryside that are wet only when it rains and may be miles from the nearest truly ‘navigable’ water. It would also regulate small, remote ‘wetlands’ — which may be nothing more than low spots on a farm field — just because those areas happen to be adjacent to a ditch or located in a floodplain.”
"The EPA’s public statements are filled with words like “wetlands” and “waters,” he points out. But those words don’t mean the same thing to the EPA as they mean to us."
"Lawmakers are up in arms over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that they fear could give federal officials expansive new powers over private property and farmland.
"The EPA is seeking to redefine what bodies of water fall under the agency’s jurisdiction for controlling pollution. The scope of the final Clean Water Act (CWA) rule is of critical importance, as any area covered would require a federal permit for certain activities.
"The rule is facing a groundswell of opposition from lawmakers, who fear the EPA is engaged in a “land grab” that could stop farmers and others from building fences, digging ditches or draining ponds." Read more...
"The EPA’s public statements are filled with words like “wetlands” and “waters,” he points out. But those words don’t mean the same thing to the EPA as they mean to us."
