WOTUS
Corn growers glad to see WOTUS go, but ‘we need to have some regulation’
The EPA overstepped with its Waters of the United States rule, said leaders of the National Corn Growers Association, who are happy the Trump administration will withdraw it. At the Commodity Classic, NCGA chairman Chip Bowling said, "[W]e do know we need to have some regulation and this group will be front and center when that time comes," reported DTN.
EPA begins work immediately to replace WOTUS
As promised by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, the administration immediately began work to replace the Waters of the United States rule that was a target of President Trump's campaign. On the same day that Trump signed an executive order to roll back WOTUS, Pruitt signed a Federal Register notice of "intention to review and rescind or revise" WOTUS.
Trump initiates lengthy process to override clean-water rule
Hours before his first speech to Congress, President Trump started the government machinery running to carry out his campaign promise to eliminate the EPA's Waters of the United States rule, a process that could take months or even years. All the same, farm groups applauded the presidential slap on the hand of what they call federal over-reach.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt tells CPAC he plans to give states more power
The new head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week that the agency’s critics are “justified” in wanting to disband it, said The Guardian. “People across the country look at the EPA at the way they look at [the Internal Revenue Service]. We want to change that. There are a lot of changes that need to take place at my agency to restore the rule of law and federalism,” said Pruitt, blaming the EPA under Obama for “regulatory
All EPA activities will be tethered to law, says new chief Pruitt
The new EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, who sued the agency 14 times while a state attorney general, told employees they will be "tethered to the statute" when writing regulations or enforcing them, with no allowance for shortcuts or stretches of authority. During a 12-minute speech to staffers during his first day on the job, Pruitt said EPA will avoid "abuses that occur sometimes," such as "using the guidance process to do regulation" and "regulation in litigation."
Farm groups eager for Pruitt to act at EPA
Confirmed by a 52-48 Senate roll call, Scott Pruitt begins his first workday as EPA administrator today with plans to address agency employees at midday. As attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt sued the EPA 14 times and was a leading opponent of its Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, a regulation that is reviled by farm groups who want to see it ditched.
Strange succeeds Sessions on Senate Agriculture Committee
Six weeks into the congressional session, the Senate Agriculture Committee has a new member, Luther Strange, an Alabama Republican and successor to Jeff Sessions, now attorney general for President Trump. Strange said that as a senator he wanted "to advance conservative principles and fight for a more lean and efficient federal government."
Trump’s two-for-one plan to weed out regulations
Federal agencies are under orders from President Donald Trump, who campaigned against bureaucratic red tape and its burden on businesses, to identify at least two existing regulations for elimination every time they issue a new regulation. The USDA had no comment on which rules it might drop.
Iowa Supreme Court rules out damages in Des Moines water-quality lawsuit
Environmentalists fear state and local officials will feel less urgency to improve water quality now that the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled drainage districts are immune from damage claims, said the Des Moines Register. The court ruling affects a federal lawsuit, expected to go to trial in Sioux City in June, by the Des Moines Water Works that blames drainage districts in three counties in northwestern Iowa for high nitrate levels in the Raccoon River.
A freeze on regulations before Trump team settles in at USDA
Within hours of taking office, the Trump administration put a freeze on federal regulations that could include the fair-play rules on livestock marketing issued last month and animal-welfare rules for organic farms issued last week. The new administration will have its first full workday of control at USDA today, with Sam Clovis, a senior adviser during the presidential campaign, as the top Trump official until the Senate confirms Sonny Perdue as agriculture secretary.
Trump administration erases climate change from White House website
The Trump administration has removed nearly all mention of climate change from the White House website, says Reuters, while publishing a call for increased energy development and fewer environmental regulations.
A late start for Trump nominee at USDA may not matter
The agricultural hallmark of the Trump administration, the 2018 farm bill, will be written by Congress for the most part, said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, so it doesn't matter that Trump will take office without a hand-picked leader at the Agriculture Department. "I don't think it's got much to do ... with getting the Trump program for agriculture moving," Grassley told reporters.
Pull out the roots of over-regulation, Farm Bureau chief tells Trump
Rural America was key to electing Donald Trump as president and it wants him to prevent over-regulation from growing back like a weed, said the president of the largest U.S. farm organization on the opening day of the group's annual convention. The American Farm Bureau Federation's Zippy Duvall also told reporters that the Trump team knows producers are frustrated by the lack of a nominee for agriculture secretary.
The future of WOTUS, under the new POTUS
President-elect Donald Trump has promised repeatedly to get rid of WOTUS — a rule that the EPA says is crucial to keeping pollution out of America’s waterways. And if WOTUS’ future wasn’t already uncertain, Trump has enlisted one of the rule’s greatest detractors to head the EPA. “What is this all about?” Scott Pruitt says in a Facebook video he posted last year about the Waters of the U.S. rule. “It’s about power. It’s about the EPA trying to assert itself in decision making that is exclusively the providence [sic] of the states, of the private property owners.”
Trump transition team tells one of its own to ‘back off’ about Sen. Heitkamp
Republican lawyer Gary Baise helped assemble Donald Trump’s agricultural advisory committee last summer. But now he’s been chastised by at least one member of the presidential transition team for his public remarks about Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who Trump is considering for secretary of agriculture.
Forceful Trump to press regulatory relief first, say farm policy hands
The Trump administration will focus on regulatory relief in its early days in office, said two farm-policy hands, who pointed to EPA's Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule as a prime example of federal over-reach. Chuck Conner, of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, said President-elect Trump will be forceful in rolling back regulations, and Dale Moore, of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the regulatory burden saps farmers' bottom lines.
Trump chooses EPA critic, an oil ally, to be its next leader
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who filed suit to block the Waters of the United States rule and who challenged the Obama administration on climate change, is President-elect Donald Trump's choice to run the EPA. Before the transition team circulated word of the choice, Jason Miller, communications director for the transition, said Pruitt "led Oklahoma's legal challenges to the EPA, Obamacare, executive actions on illegal immigration, Dodd-Frank and President Obama's repeated attempts to bypass Congress."
EPA needs to work on rural image, says its chief
Often cast as the regulatory bogeyman in rural America, the EPA has not done a good job in battling its poor reputation, says administrator Gina McCarthy. The Morning Consult quotes McCarthy as telling reporters, "I think we have not done as well as we could developing a rural strategy in cooperation with other agencies, and certainly have more presence in rural communities."