Senator Joni Ernst.
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says she is encouraged by the passage of a resolution she sponsored to drop the expanded E-P-A’s rule governing the regulation of U.S. waters. The “Waters of the U.S.” or WOTUS rules issue now goes to the House.
“I do think it will pass handily over in the House. This is significant overreach by the U.S. government,” Ernst says. Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, says three Democrat Senators voted for her resolution. “So there is an understanding of the importance of getting rid of the expanded definition of the rules, so I am very confident that this will pass through the House,” Ernst says.
She says the new rule would give federal officials control over a majority of the waters in the state of Iowa, and control of how and what farmers put on the land. “There’s is a fallacy out there that it won’t change farming operations, oh farmers are excluded from this expanded definition,” Ernst says. “Well that is inaccurate because there are other examples where within this rule it doesn’t exclude any topical applications of other types of products, whether its herbicides or fertilizers. So there is a lot of confusion about that.”
Ernst says if the issue passes the House like she expects, then it will be up to the president to follow through. “The president will have to decide whether he’s siding with federal bureaucrats and their decisions on this WOTUS rule, or whether he is going to side with the American people and the quite obvious push back that is coming from the states and the stakeholders,” Ernst says.
Ernst says the quickest way to solve the issue would be for the president to scrap the rules and have the EPA start over. She says if he doesn’t do that and the lawsuits against WOTUS continue in court, it could take many years before it is decided.