In a significant victory
for farmers, ranchers, and other landowners, President Trump has taken steps to
stop Obama’s regulatory scheme that has subjected millions of acres of private
land to federal zoning.
In a report written by APC
Board Member Dr. Bonner Cohen for our friends at CFACT, he says, “By rolling
back Obama’s 2015 ‘Waters of the United States’ (WOTUS) rule, the
administration has put an end to the biggest power grab in the 48-year history
of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).”
WOTUS used a very
questionable definition of what a “navigatable water way” is. The Obama rule
included ditches, ponds, ground water, and basically mud puddles that appear
after a rainfall.
As a result, farmers,
ranchers and other landowners have been forced to get permits from the EPA in
order to make any modifications to their property. The main result of the
scheme was to make the EPA massively powerful, as it basically controlled all
of the water in the nation.
As a candidate in 2016,
President Trump vowed to kill WOTUS. Once elected he issued an executive order
directing the EPA to roll it back. But of course, a district judge from South
Carolina invalidated the effort in 2018.
Now President Trump is
trying again by clearly defining what a navigatable waterway is. And by stating
exactly what EPA and the Corps of Engineers will and will not regulate.
As Dr. Cohen reports,
the new rule is a major victory for farmers and ranchers, allowing them to work
their land productively “without having to hire an army of lawyers and
consultants.”
But here’s the major
danger: radical environmental groups refuse to accept diminished EPA power.
They are planning to file law suits against the EPA and the Corp of Engineers
in an all out fight to get their way.
Source: Email from Tom
DeWeese at American Policy Center.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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