Ag Policy Blog

Pondering EPA's River of Dreams

Chris Clayton
By  Chris Clayton , DTN Ag Policy Editor
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"In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep, through the desert of truth, to the river so deep. We all end in the ocean; we all start in the streams. We're all carried along, by the river of dreams. In the middle of the night," -- Billy Joel, who missed his calling as an EPA water-quality regulator.

The last few weeks have turned into a watershed moment for the Environmental Protection Agency in pondering Billy Joel's lyrics from "River of Dreams."

In succession, EPA has won a court ruling saying it has authority to regulate. The agency then submitted a new rule that could broaden definitions of who is regulated and why. EPA then lost a court case that effectively said the agency needs to explain why it has chosen not to regulate.

A federal judge in the Chesapeake Bay case determined EPA was within its authority to oversee state rules and enforcement of water pollution controls to clean up the bay. Agricultural groups had sued after the Obama administration's executive order requiring EPA to step in. The case was sort of a Hail Mary for the major farm organizations considering there was nearly 40 years of case law on efforts to clean up the bay.

Just a few days after the Chesapeake ruling, EPA released a draft report from its science advisory board explaining how small streams and other bodies of water are connected to rivers and other bigger bodies of water. The report is mean to join EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rulemaking under the Clean Water Act. A draft version of the proposed rule was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget last week.

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Officials from EPA's Water Office explained the report and possible rule in a blog posting last week. http://blog.epa.gov/…

EPA has opened its draft report to public comment until Nov. 6. The draft EPA report can be found here. http://cfpub.epa.gov/…

Effectively, this could translate into more regulations around most wetlands and the most insignificant of streams. The Hill reported Monday that the National Federation of Independent Businesses is sending a letter to EPA today stating that the agency is violating a 1996 law that requires federal agencies to consult with small businesses over such regulations. According to The Hill report, NFIB stated that landowners who develop the land without permission face fined up to $37,500 a day.

"The EPA is pursuing a significant expansion of federal jurisdiction that will necessarily exert more government control over private landowners, which includes small business owners,” the group writes. “While multinational corporations with tremendous capital resources might be able to afford such.”

Following the Chesapeake ruling, DTN reported Monday about yet another ruling in the Mississippi River basin. A federal judge in Louisiana ruled that EPA must respond to five-year old request from environmental groups to consider tougher pollution controls on chemicals just as nitrogen and phosphorus in the Mississippi River basin. In other words, the environmental groups argue EPA isn't treating the Mississippi watershed with the same regulatory oversight as the Chesapeake.

Specifically, groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council note that nitrogen and phosphorus demand more regulatory oversight by states, including rules about just how much of either fertilizer should be allowed in streams, rivers or lakes.

Given that everything flows downhill, (another pun) farmers and ranchers are going to facing far more challenges ahead with water quality at about the same time the Senate and House Agriculture Committees have opted to cut anywhere $3.6 billion to $4.8 billion from conservation spending over the next decade, mainly by trimming Conservation Reserve Program acres.

One unknown in the farm-bill conference talks is whether conservation compliance would be tied to eligibility for crop insurance premium subsidies. At the rate EPA water rules, regulations and demands could change over the next five years, fighting over minimum conservation measures seems almost laughable at this point.

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Comments

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Bob Perry
10/2/2013 | 11:44 AM CDT
In May and June the EPA opened comment period on permits they are re-issuing the Corps. They are for ocean dumping the sediment that the Corp is dredging out of the intra-coastal waterway. Together these two permits will dump over 25 million cubic yards of sediment containing over 25 million metric tons of P into the Gulf of Mexico. The total P load to the Gulf is around 150 million metric tons P, so this is a significant amount. Their EIS never mentioned hypoxia in the Gulf. No environmental group commented on these permits. No Ag press or Ag group commented on these permits. This sediment is soil and could be used to build wetlands (that is how the delta was built). I have my doubts about the sincerity of the environmentalist regarding conservation and Gulf hypoxia. It seems this is more of an anti-farm policy, anti ethanol rather than really fix the problem attitude.
Bonnie Dukowitz
9/25/2013 | 9:37 AM CDT
Here I thought, Jay, the Tea Party was about freedom. I fail to see your connection between the TEA Party and whatever you refer to. I guess the difference might be; is, you appear to think the government should take our money as they wish, chasing concepts pushed by special interest, self appointed saviors of the earth and I don't.
CRAIG MOORE
9/25/2013 | 8:44 AM CDT
Gee Jay, did you miss the report LEAKED out that global climate change just might be more to do with global and solar causes and near as bad as has been reported? Did you miss the extra 1million EXTRA ACRES of ice down below? Did you notice everything going like crazy down in the coast? Did you miss how thousands of ships were sunk, with all those petroleum products, during WWll and yet the worlds ecology just keeps humming along?
Curt Zingula
9/25/2013 | 7:26 AM CDT
To the environmentalist, the end justifies the means, with the "means" being changes to quantitative TMDLs of P and N. Enforcement, however, is where they fail to connect the dots. If the Iowa River fails a TMDL and all farmers in that watershed are fined, those who ignore conservation practices will look at those who are conservation minded and also taxed then fail to see the benefit of changing. If fertilizer use is limited, and yield potential of varieties increases, we will be shooting ourselves in our food production foot. Government can tell us how to grow crops and use our land, but when that freedom is taken away, we might as well work in town for the company and forget the ravages of mother nature and whims of the CME. We can be told to put in hundreds of thousands of bio-reactors but what about all the trees that will have to be cut down for wood chips? I've already been criticized for cleaning brush out of my fence rows. The dots just get farther and farther apart the less you leave to wishful thinking! And I believe there will be no end to environmentalist demands - I sat through a watershed authority meeting last month and listened to criticism that my drainage tile effluence is "hungry water". Hungry water, I'm told, is water too clean and as such will cause excessive stream bed and bank erosion. There's no end in sight!
Jay Mcginnis
9/25/2013 | 7:16 AM CDT
Right Bonnie, the party of tea has no interest in anything green except for making money. Why care about anything else? Corporations need profits and if BP destroys the Gulf or the XL pipeline wrecks the aquifer or climate change makes life unlivable,,, well that is just too bad,,,
Bonnie Dukowitz
9/25/2013 | 5:44 AM CDT
Interesting Info. Bring in the recent pork transaction and the chicken deal. Who, other than China, has the cash to buy carbon credits, chicken poop credits and pork fart meters?