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Updated WOTUS causes more uncertainty for ag

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s incoming president, a lawyer and South Dakota rancher Todd Wilkinson says the EPA’s final Waters of the United States rule is better than the Obama administration’s WOTUS rule, but there will still be issues with case-by-case analysis.

“That was the big problem prior to 2015,” says Wilkinson. “We didn’t have any regulatory certainty.”

Wilkinson says WOTUS affects how producers operate their farms and ranches.

“If we’re talking about ephemeral streams (streams with water flowing only a certain time of the year), it does rain occasionally in South Dakota. To somehow say the occasional rain and where it runs off a field or pasture is somehow jurisdictional just because that water is running off puts the producer in a real problem.”

Wilkinson says the pending ruling on WOTUS from the Supreme Court in 2023 may also differ from what EPA is proposing.

“Why this rule is coming out now when they could have waited and taken into consideration the Supreme Court decision that’s pending, makes no sense. All we’re doing is going to add into uncertainty.”

Read more about the final WOTUS rule.

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