Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., really can agree on something.
Indiana Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly and four colleagues from both parties have come together out of concern about five little words: “waters of the United States.”
To deal with fears about the meaning of those words, the senators introduced the Federal Water Quality Protection Act earlier this month.
The longstanding Clean Water Act says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can regulate the “waters of the United States” to prevent pollution. But the senators worry that new EPA rules would greatly expand what that phrase means.
The senators’ bill lays out clearly which bodies of water would and would not be regulated by EPA. Specifically, it would exclude most farm ditches.
Farm agencies and the EPA have been disagreeing for months about how the new rules would affect farmers. Donnelly and friends want to remove the uncertainty.
The senators say their bill still protects “waters that most everyone agrees should be covered,” including navigable waters, drinking water sources, and wetlands that filter out pollutants from rivers and lakes.
They say their bill also provides “common-sense exemptions for isolated ponds and agricultural or roadside ditches—most of which EPA has indicated they never intended to cover.”
The bill gives the EPA specific instructions for writing a new rule. It would require the EPA to work with the agriculture community, including soil and water conservation districts.
“No one wants cleaner water or better land conditions than the families who live on American farms,” Donnelly said. “That is why it is incredibly important that the EPA rewrite the Waters of the United States rule with input from the people who live and work on the land and alongside these waters every day.”
He added, “… Democrats and Republicans can agree that the EPA needs to consult with states, small businesses and farmers on something so critical as defining ‘Waters of the U.S.’ in a common-sense way—something they failed to do the first time.”
“Indiana corn farmers support clean water and the mission of the Clean Water Act, but we don’t support EPA using it as a means for the federal government to regulate roadside ditches and standing water across our state,” Herb Ringel of Wabash, president of the Indiana Corn Growers Association, said in a news release issued by Donnelly.
The Associated Press reports that the EPA’s proposed rule would give it authority over “streams, tributaries, wetlands and other flowing waters that significantly affect other protected waters downstream.”
AP says, “Farm groups are particularly concerned over the definition of tributary and whether common farm ditches would be regulated. EPA says it would only regulate farm ditches that are constructed through wetlands or streams and flow year-round.”
AP adds, “EPA officials have acknowledged they may not have written the proposal clearly enough, and said final rules expected in the coming months will better define which waters would fall under the law.”
If the EPA truly does want to improve the clarity of what it’s trying to do, it should welcome the efforts by Donnelly and his allies to help.
Donnelly said the bill “… isn’t designed to destroy or delay the rule indefinitely. In fact, our bill asks the EPA not to put off this important work, to complete it by Dec. 31, 2016.”