Organizations representing American farmers slammed a recent Biden administration regulation repeals a Trump-era action regarding how natural water sources in the U.S. are protected.
The groups argued that the rule would increase uncertainty and pose regulatory roadblocks for farmers. On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the rule change, redefining which “waters of the United States” are federally protected under the Clean Water Act.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the regulation change “safeguards our nation’s waters, strengthens economic opportunity, and protects people’s health.” But critics of the move said it would lead to increased federal scrutiny of how farmers and other landowners treat water sources on their property such as ravines and creeks, creating additional costs.
“AFBF is extremely disappointed in the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers’ new Waters of the United States Rule,” said Zippy Duvall, the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Farmers and ranchers share the goal of protecting the nation’s waterways, but they deserve rules that don’t require a team of attorneys and consultants to identify ‘navigable waters’ on their land.”
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“EPA has doubled down on the old significant nexus test, creating more complicated regulations that will impose a quagmire of regulatory uncertainty on large areas of private farmland miles from the nearest navigable water,” Duvall continued.
He added that the regulation would threaten progress that has been made on natural resource management and “will make it more difficult for farmers and ranchers to ensure food security” for American families.
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The battle over how to define protected water sources in the U.S. stretches back nearly a decade. During the Obama administration, the EPA issued a rule broadly defining waterways in an effort to reduce water pollution. Then the Trump administration reversed the rule and highlighted which water sources — such as puddles, groundwater, many ditches, farm and stock watering ponds and waste treatment systems — that it wouldn’t consider in need of federal protection.
The Biden administration largely restored the pre-Trump regulations.

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