Clearing Up the Waters: Why one Representative is joining the fight against the new WOTUS rule

Many lawmakers and stakeholders throughout the agriculture industry have been voicing their opposition for the EPA‘s latest Waters of the U.S. Rule.

Representative John Duarte out of California, who is a farmer himself, is joining in on that fight. In fact, he had his own personal legal battle with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers for what he says was just planting wheat in his wheat field.

Duarte says we have to fight to make sure producers can grow abundant and affordable food for not only American consumers, but the world.

“We all hope, in agriculture, that the Supreme Court supports and reasserts what Congress clearly said, that the Clean Water Act has jurisdiction over navigable waters of the United States. It doesn’t say, adjacent waters, it doesn’t say waters separated by a roadway, or waters that have some future-defined significant nexus to waters of the United States,” Rep. Duarte says.

He also says the new rule is premature, but he is willing to step in to make sure the EPA and Army Corps finally clear up the waters on WOTUS.

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