Posted on 05/28/2015 9:24:17 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Dozens of congressional Democrats are joining Republicans to back legislation blocking the Obama administration’s new rule to redefine its jurisdiction over the nation’s waterways.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers made the regulation final Wednesday in an attempt to clarify that small streams, wetlands, headwaters and tributaries are covered by the Clean Water Act and the rules that go along with it.
Opponents labeled the rule as a massive “power grab” by the Obama administration that could give federal officials authority over every creek and puddle.
Three moderate Democrats in the Senate and 24 in the House have joined the GOP in opposition, but leave them far from the two-thirds majorities they would need for a veto-proof vote to overturn the rule.
But their support offers a bipartisan vote against the water regulation if they decided to use the Congressional Review Act or another legislative strategy to show opposition to Obama’s action.
Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Joe Donnelly (Ind.) signed on this month with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and 26 other Republicans as co-sponsors of the Federal Water Quality Protection Act. Heitkamp, Manchin and Donnelly are often skeptics of the Obama administration’s environmental agenda.
In rolling out the final rule Wednesday, the administration questioned the motives of opponents.
“The only people with reason to oppose the rule are polluters who want to threaten our clean water,” said Brian Deese, Obama’s top environmental adviser.
The Senate bill would overturn the water rule and give the EPA specific instructions and a deadline for writing it in a way that senators hope would cover less area and impede less on private and state property rights.
“It’s frustrating that after so much time, the EPA today decided to finalize this rule instead of conducting more consultations and releasing a revised rule as our legislation would require,” Heitkamp said in a Wednesday statement.
“For the past several months, I’ve been working on a bipartisan bill to fix this issue by actually taking into account the needs of our farmers and ranchers, and giving them clarity without adding more federal regulations,” she said.
In his own statement, Manchin accused the EPA of “once again dangerously overreaching its boundaries by expanding the definition of water sources it can regulate.”
He said the rule “will certainly have a significant impact on West Virginia’s economy, hindering businesses, manufacturing and energy production.”
The two dozen House Democrats joined all 237 Republicans present earlier this month to pass the Regulatory Integrity Act, sponsored by Reps. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) to overturn the rule.
The Democrats included moderate members of the Blue Dog Coalition like Reps. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Gwen Graham (Fla.) and Sanford Bishop (Ga.).
The group also included representatives of states with heavy agriculture, like Reps. Tim Walz (Minn.) and Henry Cuellar (Texas).
Farmers and ranchers have been among the most vocal opponents of the water rule, saying it would mandate expensive permits and federal review for common agricultural tasks like digging ditches and spraying fertilizer.
March 7, 2015: "Researchers and supporters of a program that helps farmers run cleaner and more efficient operations say they were “stunned” and “blindsided” by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut a third of the project’s funding.
Discovery Farms, a UW-Extension program that dates to 2001, applies science from a “plows-on” level, evaluates and monitors efforts by state farmers to control runoff, calibrate fertilizer use and employ techniques to conserve land and water.
It has a $750,000 budget, of which $248,000 would be cut in the governor’s proposed state budget.
UW-Extension officials noted the loss affects longstanding projects and the ability of the small program to leverage crucial additional grants and funds.
“We would have a 1.2-employee reduction of staff and we would pull back some of our sampling efforts, water quality analysis and a project (set) for Rock County,” said Amber Radatz, project co-director.
The project’s programs include monitoring 20 state farms and educating thousands of farmers on conservation strategies.
“This was a big surprise to our agency partners as well as our partners in farm groups and in UW-Extension,” she said. “We never had an inkling.”
The $248,000 comes from a surcharge on farm chemical sales that would be discontinued."
A $750k program like this is a drop in the bucket. Probably just a payoff to some some pol’s relative. Ag companies and co-ops spend many multiples of that much money on the same research, and they actually have a payoff.
They're rassists.
Whoever controls the water and the food controls the people.
I think the word buck is racis’, just like thug.
It shocked the stuffings out of the Left and showed the farmers that someone is listening and doing something.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Slowly the EPA and Big Education “studies” are being dismantled.
Instead of dismissing it as too small, celebrate that someone has moved the ball (and creatively to) in the other direction.
Have your cake and eat it too.
They can go home and tell their constituents “I voted against it”.
Obama will veto it and the regs will move forward anyhow.
Yes.
Not many candidates can point to even small successes at reining in government spending.
A friend of mine near here has forty acres. He is allowed to spread chicken manure on the southern half as it is on the Illinois watershed. he is banned from manure, but can spread chemical fertilizer on the northern half as it is on the Spavinaw Creek watershed. Tulsans don’t like his flavored water from Spavinaw creek.
That comment is total BS. The people who oppose this are those who might want to build a storage shed in their backyard, or a barn on the north forty or a cabin on the 50 woodland acres they bought. Just about any structural improvement could be stopped by the EPA if it declares that pot hole on your property will fills with water after a rainstorm makes your property a "wetland". They've done it many times in the past.
If nothing else, Obama's idiots are certainly scripted and spot on with the simpleton messaging service we call our media and news outlets.
Is this for real?? Some Democrats are actually seeing that a centralized government ruling over local authorities is a bad thing???
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