Agricultural News
Farm Bureau Calls Clean Water Rule Life Changing for Farmers and Ranchers
Fri, 12 Jun 2015 16:25:06 CDT
Don't believe the Environmental Protection Agency won't be regulating land use. That's a message being put out by the American Farm Bureau Federation over the 'Waters of the U.S.' final rule. AFBF General Counsel Ellen Steen has read the Clean Water rule and found it's harmful to agriculture.
"It really is a marketing campaign and it is highly deceptive and it's aimed at persuading farmers and ranchers that they're not going to be effected by this rule and their life isn't going to change under this rule and that farming activities are not going to be subject to wide scale federal permitting requirements and those are false statements and we have rebutted some of those statements in some of the paper we put out and so I would like to be sure that message is coming out from us loud and clear that when this rule goes into effect and that's going to be 60 days after it appears in the Federal Register. The lawsuits may not come the first week and they may not come the second week, but enforcement of this law is coming. It's coming to the countryside and when it hits, life is going to change significantly for a lot of farmers and ranchers."
The Farm Bureau analysis, now available online by clicking here , makes available to the public details the EPA has refused to address in public meetings over the past year.
In the final rule, American Farm Bureau looked at how ditches would be treated. AFBF President Bob Stallman said it's not pretty as these agencies have given themselves plenty of room to regulate most ditches as 'Water of the U.S.'.
"The farmer remains under a large cloud of Clean Water Act liability for any incidental amounts of fertilizer, pesticide or anything else that falls into a ditch," Stallman said.
Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays featured Ellen Steen and Bob Stallman of American Farm Bureau on the Beef Buzz feature. Click or tap here on the LISTENBAR below to hear the feature.
If you would like to listen to the full teleconference with reporters. You can hear comments from President Stallman and staffers Don Parrish and Ellen Steen by clicking here.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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