Farm Bureau Regulatory Specialist Don Parrish says EPA’s regulatory guidance at the White House for review would not just expand EPA jurisdiction to all U.S. waters - but allow it to vastly boost an impending pesticide permit requirement…
“If this guidance document, as the Corps and the EPA does as they say they have done in this leaked document to expand jurisdiction, all of a sudden it’s going to be all but impossible for a farmer to avoid an erosion feature, it’s going to be impossible for them to avoid every ditch, it’s going to be impossible to avoid every isolated puddle on their farm. And if that is the case then it broadens the number of pesticides that will need permits.”
Parrish says EPA and the Army Corps are involved in a sham process to expand jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act - power they couldn’t get from
Congress two years ago…
“We think the bi-partisan support is extremely strong, particularly in the house because we had the chairman and the ranking members of both the House Agriculture Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee both speak on this and sign on this letter.”
Parrish is referring to a letter to the EPA and the Corps recently - signed by 170 members of both parties - arguing that the agencies can’t change the scope and meaning of the law without a new law or regulations.
But Parrish says EPA makes no bones about its intent. It wants expanded authority and won’t take no for an answer…
“And they want to expand jurisdiction onto features that most people do not and will not support as being designated as waters of the US. We’re not fighting about rivers and streams and creeks; things that have water in them. We’re fighting about things that only have water in them during rainfall events.”
Parrish says farmers need to get educated on this issue and come to grips with how this could impact the landscape that they farm. He adds the Senate needs to fix the problem - as the House has voted to do - by reversing court-ordered permits for pesticide spraying in or near water.
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