Challanges Besides Farm Bill Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Two big challenges facing the ag industry today include Congress putting together the next Farm Bill and cleaning up the mess caused by California’s Prop 12 regulations.
Another major problem that’s been pushed aside during the Farm Bill debates, according to American Farm Bureau Executive Vice President, Joby Young, is WOTUS …
YOUNG … “Well, we’ll be continuing to focus on the Waters of the U.S. and the new WOTUS rules. Of course, we had a great victory in the Sackett Supreme Court case which the justices overwhelmingly rejected the prior language that EPA had pursued with a wording of significant nexus to a jurisdiction for Waters of the U.S. And they rejected that, and then went on to lay out some really, what we feel, was very clear guidance for rule making around the Clean Water Act.”
Which, Young says could easily get in the way of production …
YOUNG … “And it gets us right back to the problem for the farmer and rancher out there on the ground. They’re making business decisions, they’re making production and practice decisions, and they need to know what those guidelines are, what the jurisdiction is, what they can and can’t do because they had to make those decisions. They don’t need to have vague or uncertain enforcement hanging or something hanging over their head when they don’t know where they stand.”
Young says they will continue to work on both the WOTUS and Prop 12 issues while waiting to see what happens in Congress and our chance of a new Farm Bill.
