AFBF: WOTUS Repeal Great News For Agriculture

On Thursday, the Trump Administration officially repealed the 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule, which the American Farm Bureau Federation said represents a big win for farmers and ranchers.

“This is a huge win for Farm Bureau," said AFBF senior director of regulatory relations, Don Parrish.  "Its one that has taken almost three years of this administration to do. It is one that will ultimately lead to another step, being a new regulation that provides the kind of clarity that I think our members deserve, that I think the public deserves, but it also provides protections for water quality.”

So, where do we go from here?

“What it means is we revert back to the rules that existed before 2015," Parrish said.  "The next step is to develop a rule that provides clarity and really draws a line on the landscape. On one side of the line, the waters are important enough that the federal government should regulate, on the other side of that the line, states should regulate.”

Parish says the new rule should take a “commonsense approach” to regulating water.

“There’s a lot of things in place that are going to be protective of water quality. But we think its going to be put into place in a common sensical kind of fashion that allows farmers to continue to farm and improve the productivity of their land and do the kind of things that its going to take to pass farmland down from generation to generation,” Parrish noted.

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