Agricultural News
The Fight is Coming - AFBF President Zippy Duvall Unveils New Campaign to Pass to WOTUS 2.0
Tue, 15 Jan 2019 10:02:23 CST
Over the years of battle with the Obama Administration over the Waters of the United States rule, two agricultural groups stood out among all the others trying to carry the water on behalf of farmers and ranchers - the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the American Farm Bureau. Zippy Duvall, president of the AFBF addressed the members of the organization at their 100th Annual Convention this week in New Orleans, during which he said that after the Trump Administration transitioned into control of the White House, he received a phone call from one of the key players of the Trump team regarding WOTUS.
"Early this last year, Mr. Pruitt, EPA Administrator at that time, called me and sked me to go to lunch with him. He wanted to talk about WOTUS," he said. "He asked me what a new rule looked like to me. I said it needs to be one or two pages. It need to have clear definitions and a farmer needs to be able to take it, put it in his truck and drive across his farm and say 'yes, I know that's a Waters of the US' and 'no, that's not - that puddle's not.'"
Fast forward to today - Scott Pruitt has since been replaced by Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who is finishing what Pruitt started in his effort to repeal and replace the Obama-era WOTUS rule. Duvall says just recently, when Wheeler announced the new proposed rule to take the place of the original 2015 version, he stated it would have all the criteria that Duvall had outlined during his lunch with Pruitt the year prior.
"Now you tell me - that wasn't Zippy Duvall talking. That was American Farm Bureau's influence," Duvall stated before laying out the new AFBF campaign that will encourage passage of the proposed new WOTUS rule, which will soon be subject to a public comment period once the government is restarted. "The new campaign is 'Clean Water, Clear Rules.' That comment period is not just for us. It's for everybody to comment and let me tell you something. Environmentalists hate this new rule. They are going to come out in force and try to defeat this new rule. But, if I look through history, I've never seen this organization walk away from a fight. Never. By golly we're not going to this time."
Listen to more of Duvall's remarks on AFBF's continuing efforts to revise the WOTUS rule, with Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays, on today's Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is 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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