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AFBF: WOTUS memos reveal EPA misconduct

Army Corps of Engineers internal memos connected to the EPA’s Waters of the U.S. rule reveal what the American Farm Bureau says is dysfunction, secrecy and misconduct at the EPA.  The corps memos were released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  Farm Bureau Congressional Relations Director Don Parrish says the memos show that EPA’s cost-benefit economic analysis “is not worth the paper it’s written on.”

“The Corps said they don’t even want to be associated with it,” Parrish told Brownfield Ag News Friday, “and that they misused Corps data in order to produce that economic analysis.”

In many cases, the corps didn’t get to see what the EPA now refers to as the Clean Water Rule until after it went through the Interagency Review Process, said Parrish. This, he said, brings into question whether it’s a JOINT rulemaking between the Corps and the EPA.

“You’re looking at kind of a systematic disregard to the process, into the fundamental underpinnings of the way in which our federal agencies are supposed to conduct important administrative law,” said Parrish.

In the memos, the Corps raised concerns about whether a depression holding water on a farm would be a regulated “water” or an excluded “puddle,” according to a news release from the AFBF.  EPA has insisted throughout the rulemaking process, said the new release, that “puddles” would not be regulated.

AUDIO: Don Parrish AFBF (5 min. MP3)

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