PRESIDENTIAL PARADIGMS
Will Congress Stop the EPA?
Charles Wilfong, President, West Virginia Farm Bureau
this rule, EPA and
the Army Corps of
Engineers will be
given control of
virtually all water
and all land in the
United States. The
extent to which this
wipes away our
private property
rights is mindnumbing.
Let me give you a
few examples of the
waters that will be
controlled under the
new rule:
The EPA’s final rule
defining ‘Waters of the U.S.’
(WOTUS) was published in
the Federal Register on June
29, 2015. This final rule is
even worse that we had been
expecting. It establishes
federal power far beyond
what EPA had proposed
just over a year ago. Under
“
objective of the EPA. As we have warned in the
past, there will be limitless new regulations and
permit requirements for what have always been
normal farming practices. These permits will be
accompanied by fees that EPA can set at their
discretion.
Never before have we seen a non-elected
government agency seize private property rights
as the EPA does under this rule. EPA has a
long history of
overreach, but
this far outpaces
anything they’ve
attempted before.
This rule destroys
the basic right of
ownership and use
of private property.
Never before
have we seen a nonelected government
agency seize private
property rights as
the EPA does under
this rule.”
• All navigable water
• All tributaries of navigable waters
• Any waters within 4000 feet of a tributary
• Any pothole, pool, pond, wetland, ditch,
ephemeral, or land feature that has any
connection to any of the above-mentioned
waters
• All waters within a 100-year floodplain
Just these definitions of controlled waters take
in virtually all waters in West Virginia and in
the rest of the country. So, if all our waters are
included in the rule, that means that all of our
land will be included and controlled under the
rule as well.
This control of land use has long been an
4 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
Congress must
act. EPA should
be de-funded
and returned to
the role it was
originally intended
to have, rather
than the activist
role it has now
assumed. The power to make and implement
these kinds of excessive rules and regulations
should never have been given to any government
agency, and it must be ended.