MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- The Tennessee Farm Bureau says it’s reviewing the Obama Administration’s new rules governing the pollution of waterways.
This past week the Environmental Protection Agency moved to clarify which streams and other small bodies of water are federally protected.
The rules have already run into deep opposition from farm groups and the Republican-led Congress. The House voted to block the regulations earlier this month, saying they amount to overreach.
The Tennessee Farm Bureau’s Stefan Maupin says it’s going to take a while to digest the new regulations. He notes the preamble alone runs to about 300 pages.
Maupin says, however, that the Farm Bureau is disappointed that the EPA didn’t take more time to review the million plus public comments the new regulations generated.
“That comment period ended, I believe, in November. And here, for all practical purposes just a few short months later, they have released a final rule. We wish they would have taken more time to listen to the concerns of the farm community.”
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy says the rule will only affect waters that have a "direct and significant" connection to larger bodies of water downstream that are already protected.