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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Friday, April 26, 2024
For nearly four decades, the federal government has protected environmentally sensitive farmland through a simple bargain with farmers known as “conservation compliance.” If they want to receive farm program benefits, growers can’t plow up wetlands, and they must take steps to protect highly erodible acreage.
The Agriculture Department on Wednesday announced it will use $138 million of Inflation Reduction Act funding to enroll 138 new easements into the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are using "secret guidance" to implement wetlands regulations, ag stakeholders said at a listening session Tuesday addressing the murky issues surrounding the “waters of the U.S.” rule.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service will have to come up with a new rule explaining how it plans to determine whether farmers have wetlands on their property, after a federal judge tossed a 2020 rule in response to a lawsuit from the National Wildlife Federation.
A federal judge has shot down a Trump administration decision to give Florida authority to grant permits for projects affecting waters covered by the Clean Water Act.
Legal experts gave senators conflicting views Wednesday on whether the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision is consistent with the science around the connectivity of waters.
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are scrapping the “significant nexus” standard to determine when waters or wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act, as well as their definition of “adjacent wetlands,” to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA.
Farm groups are among the dozens of industry trade associations expressing concern that the Environmental Protection Agency will try to retain broad authority to regulate discharges into non-navigable waters despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett.
The Supreme Court’s Clean Water Act decision to limit the federal government’s jurisdiction over “adjacent” wetlands prompted warnings that millions of acres of wetlands could be at risk, but also generated cheers from farm groups that have fought the interpretation of the 50-year-old law for decades.
