This week the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are wrapping up a series of roundtable discussions with stakeholders in the debate over the return of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. This rule was first instated in the Obama administration, scrapped and replaced in the Trump Administration, and is now poised for a comeback after President Biden scrapped its replacement.
Basically, this all boils down to who is going to have jurisdiction over YOUR land and tell you how to manage any water on it. Of course, all of this will go under a jurisdiction that still has people confused on a clear definition. This is supposed to be about controlling waterways used for interstate or international trade. This means your rivers, lakes, and such. However, there is real concerns about the Federal government including creeks, water holes in the fields, and maybe even the occasional puddle in the farmyard.
It is in this interest that the EPA and the Corps of Engineers held a series of roundtable discussions aimed at bringing stakeholders together and talking about what are the best ways to move forward are also address the concerns of all those involved. Sounds like a straightforward way of doing business, right? That?s what Courtney Briggs of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) tells us. Courtney is the Senior Director of Government Affairs.
However, it seems that these proceedings have been anything but honest. After the first roundtable, concerns were lifted by the AFBF that mainstream agriculture did not have a voice in the discussion. These rules were going to play a huge role in the future of the business, but farmers weren?t being consulted. The AFBF was hoping in the last ten roundtable discussions, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers would be more proactive in engaging agriculture.
They were not.
According to Briggs, the discussions remained very one-sided on the WOTUS topic. But, before you get in a tizzy about rules being made without the voice of agriculture being heard, consider this new piece of information.
In a stroke of brilliance unmatched by anything in recent memory, the roundtables were wrapped up, and it was then announced that the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers would not be taking anything they gleaned from these discussions into the consideration of this rule. Courtney Briggs asks the question on everybody?s mind, ?what was the point??
So, agriculture doesn?t know whether this can be considered a stroke of luck being we weren?t invited, or if this is the sign of a government that isn?t going to listen to anybody and isn?t making any excuses about it. Either way, the rulemaking process is still going on, but the Supreme Court is set to weigh in as well.
No matter what side of the fence you are on with this WOTUS rule, the government has officially come clean and said that your voice wasn?t really going to affect the outcome of them doing whatever they wanted. If there is something both sides of this argument can agree on, it is that they have been had.
Roundtable? More like ?Runaround Table.?
