Agricultural News
EPA's Scott Pruitt Touts Regulatory Certainty as a Key for a New Improved WOTUS Coming From the Trump Administration
Mon, 31 Jul 2017 05:40:40 CDT
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt continued his multistate action tour in Oklahoma this past week, following visits to Utah, Minnesota and Arkansas earlier in July. The visit highlights the administrator's recent decision to begin the process to redefine the "Waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule to help return power back to the states and provide regulatory certainty to farmers, landowners, and ranchers across the country.
While in Oklahoma, Pruitt made stops in Bartlesville, Guymon and Oklahoma City. In Oklahoma City, the Oklahoma Association of Electric Coops and Oklahoma Rural Water Association hosted a meeting of over a hundred Oklahoma Ag Leaders and Government Officials to discuss what a new WOTUS Rule should look like. Bill Sims, President of the Oklahoma Rural Water Association, told Pruitt that he is hoping for a rule that is "simple and understandable and be easily administered."
As for Pruitt, he spoke of the need for "regulatory certainty" which he told Radio Oklaholma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays would result in "folks knowing whether the rule applies to them or not so they will know how to allocate resources to comply and do what is necessary." Pruitt adds "we want to make certain that the regulations and statue mach and that we have objective criteria so that people will know what is expected of them."
Pruitt also talked with the Ag Leaders that the rule he wants to be put in place will be durable. Pruitt told Hays it is his hope that "people will have a longer expectation about the rule and that it won't displaced two years from now. It is not a good situation for regulations to change every two or three or four years."
Pruitt told the ag leaders that the Obama Era WOTUS Rule is now in the process of being rescinded- and the Public Comment Period for that proposal runs now til August28, 2017. Click here for more details of that removal of the 2015 Rule. Pruitt says he hopes to have proposed language of a new Clean Water Rule in September and is aiming for early 2018 to finalize the redo of WOTUS.
You can hear comments from EPA Administrator Pruitt and Bill Sims in our special overview from the Friday event by clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
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