The New Mexico Cattlemen's Association is suing the Trump administration over rolling back an Obama-era water rule, saying it still remains too strict.
The lawsuit claims the administration's Navigable Waters Protection rule "does not define 'navigable'" and leaves it unclear if it is up to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, or the state to regulate bodies of water, reports The Hill.
The rule also does not provide guidance or criteria to the agencies to determine who oversees what and violates the Constitution, Clean Water Act, and Supreme Court, the lawsuit claims.
Environmental groups, however, complain the new rule reverts the level of protection to far-too-low levels.
"This is not just undoing the clean water rule promulgated by the Obama administration," Collin O'Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said when the rule was first announced in January. "This is going back to the lowest level of protection we've seen in the last 50 years."
But farmers also said President Barack Obama's Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rules were too far-reaching, and President Donald Trump promised during his 2016 campaign to repeal it.
"As long as I'm president, the government will never micromanage America's farmers," he told the audience at the American Farm Bureau Federation. The EPA refused to comment on the pending lawsuit.
Lawsuits were also filed recently against the Affordable Clean Energy rule, put in place to weaken power plant regulations. Environmentalist groups, as well as coal companies, argue the EPA should not have issued the new regulation.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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