Banks Leads Letter Urging Farm Bill Conferees to Repeal WOTUS

Fort Wayne – Congressman Jim Banks (IN-03) yesterday led a group of 50 House colleagues in sending a letter to House and Senate members of the 2018 Farm Bill conference committee urging them to include the Banks amendment to permanently repeal the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule in the final bill.

Text of the letter can be found here or below.

August 22, 2018

The Honorable Pat Roberts
Chairman
U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Washington, DC 20510                                       

The Honorable Mike Conaway
Chairman
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture
Washington, DC 20515               

The Honorable Debbie Stabenow
Ranking Member
U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Collin Peterson
Ranking Member
U.S. House Committee on Agriculture
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairmen Roberts and Conaway, and Ranking Members Stabenow and Peterson:

We write to thank you for your hard work on passing the House and Senate-passed versions of the Farm Bill reauthorization which provides Congress an important opportunity to ensure regulatory relief to our country’s farmers and ranchers.  As conference begins its work to unify the two packages, we urge you to preserve the following amendment to the House version of the bill which would repeal the final rule issued by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Secretary of the Army entitled “Clean Water Rule: Definition of ‘Waters of the United States”, published on June 29, 2015 (80 Fed. Reg. 37054) and any regulation or policy revised under that rule.  The rule would impose cumbersome regulations on farmers and ranchers, without giving Congress a say to determine the proper definition instead.

Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely,