In the wake of the White House’s release of the finalized Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) Rule, created by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, released a statement on Wednesday with his concerns over the new 300-page regulation.
“The WOTUS rule raises more questions than it answers about the expansion of federal jurisdiction under EPA’s Clean Water Act,” Roberts said.
The chairman recalled a hearing his committee hosted in March, during which farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders from rural areas in Kansas and around the country voiced their concerns about the pending rule.
“The message was clear,” Roberts said. “This is the wrong approach and the wrong rule for agriculture and rural America. Today, the Obama administration released the damaging Waters of the U.S. finalized rule – a regulation opposed by virtually every farm organization, commodity group and other business interests in rural America.
“EPA not only stacked the deck against agriculture, it ignored them,” Roberts said.
Roberts said he and Senate colleagues are responding with the Federal Water Quality Protection Act — legislation that will require the EPA to scrap WOTUS and start over with a new rulemaking process that includes all stakeholders – especially those from the agriculture sector.
“All of us want to protect clean water, especially agriculture,” Roberts said. “However, farmers and ranchers cannot be ignored. We will lead the charge in pushing back against EPA’s egregious federal overreach.”