By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — New legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would greatly expand the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA), according to many agricultural groups, and pose potential hardships for farmers.

The National Corn Growers Assoc., American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. have joined in opposition of this legislation.

H.R. 2421, the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act of 2007 (CWARA), removes the term “navigable waters” from the 1972 federal law, could place many routine farming tasks at risk of CWA regulation, the organization said. The result would be an “extreme economic burden on farmers and ranchers.”

“The authors of the 1972 Clean Water Act deliberately included ‘navigable waters’ in the legislation. Deleting the term from the law does not restore congressional intent; it changes and expands it,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman.

According to NCGA, the legislation would not only expand the federal regulatory reach of the CWA, but it would also take away the power of states over land and water use by granting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers federal authority over all “instate waters” and fails to clarify any limits on federal authority.

Introduced by Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the legislation now boasts 158 co-sponsors, 149 of which are Democrats and nine Republicans. Oberstar said the purpose of this proposed legislation is to “fix” the CWA after it was damaged by two U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006.

“This bill is designed to restore the authority of the Clean Water Act so it has the same effect it had prior to the Supreme Count’s rulings,” Oberstar said. “This legislation will not create onerous new rules or regulations.”

“As part of the Waters Advocacy Coalition, we are committed to the protection and restoration of America’s wetland resources,” said NCGA President Ken McCauley. “However, we do not believe that it is in the nation’s interest to regulate ditches, culverts and pipes, desert washes, dry arroyos, farmland and treatment ponds as ‘waters of the United States’ and therefore subject such waters to all of the requirements of federal regulation.”

In a letter to Congress, WAC detailed how the proposed regulatory increase would result in permitting delays and increased costs, including impeding a host of economic and governmental activities, commercial and residential real estate development, agricultural production, paper production, electric transmission, transportation and energy and mineral production.

“The original intent of Congress was to broadly regulate pollution without federal oversight of every isolated wet spot in the nation,” Stallman said. If this bill becomes law, it would be the most far-reaching expansion of the Clean Water Act in more than three decades and could extend federal jurisdiction to everything from ditches and gutters to groundwater.”

NCGA Production and Stewardship Action Team Chairman Bill Chase said corn growers continue to be committed to the protection and restoration of wetland, however, he said this types of regulation of all “waters of the United States” – from ditches to treatment ponds will only result in confusion and not water quality protection.

“Currently, American agriculture is appropriately regulated by the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and state laws that protect the environment,” McCauley said. “This proposed legislation goes well beyond the existing regulatory limitations authorized by both Democratic and Republican administrations which allowed for the commonsense uses such as prior converted cropland and waste treatment systems.”

While the first sentence of the act states its purpose is to reaffirm the original intent of Congress in enacting the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Ammendment of 1972 to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters of the United States, there is disagreement how this legislation will impact farming operations.

According to Oberstar, CWARA reaffirms exemptions for farming, mining, logging and other activities not regulated by the CWA. However, Chase said the CWARA fails to adopt important regulatory exemptions for prior converted cropland and waste treatment systems and urges Congress not to rush to changing the jurisdictional reach of the CWA.

“The Clean Water Act is one of our nation’s most comprehensive environmental laws. It properly grants jurisdiction over intrastate waters to local and state governments. Passage of the Clean Water Restoration Act will result in greater confusion, not clarity,” Stallman said.