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Posted on Jan 19, 2023 in Featured, News Releases

Texas Farm Bureau files legal challenge to new WOTUS rule

Texas Farm Bureau files legal challenge to new WOTUS rule

(WACO, Texas)—Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) filed a legal challenge today to the new Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule recently announced by the Biden administration.

TFB joined Matagorda County Farm Bureau, American Farm Bureau Federation and 15 other organizations representing agriculture, infrastructure and housing in filing the lawsuit against the rule issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Texas farmers and ranchers cannot know whether their property or project contains WOTUS, because the rule is hopelessly vague,” TFB President Russell Boening said. “The rule reaches far too broadly to cover wet patches and areas that are usually dry or remote from navigable water. The rule violates the Clean Water Act and the Constitution, as well as Supreme Court case law, and it should be struck down.”

Boening said the rule will require landowners to hire environmental consultants, attorneys and engineers to ensure they are in compliance while trying to farm their land. He said the rule will have broad impacts throughout the country.

“It will slow down or halt projects, increase costs, eliminate jobs, all without improving water quality, which Congress trusted states and localities to regulate where navigation is not involved,” he said.

Read the lawsuit here

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