Miller-Meeks Touts Trump Era Water Quality Rules

Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Ottumwa, fellow House Republicans from Ohio and Washington state, and the American Farm Bureau’s president are making stops in Iowa, touting the Trump Administration’s approach to federal oversight of rivers, lakes, and wetlands.

“Trying to have an exchange of information, of knowledge and then what other steps we can take in order to continue to promote agriculture, to make the rules more easily understandable and, if possible, reinstate the Navigable Waters rule that was put in place by President Trump,” Miller-Meeks says. The group will be in Pella this (Wednesday) morning for a tour sponsored by the National Home Builders Association. Miller-Meeks says federal water policy impacts industries like home building as well as mining, road construction, and farming.

“The Trump Administration gave guidance to all of these various industries and to homeowners or property owners,” Miller-Meeks says. The fight over federal oversight of water quality in streams and wetlands pits farmers and developers against environmental and conservation groups. Critics say Trump-era rules went too far in rolling back federal oversight. Miller-Meeks says returning to the Obama era’s Waters of the U-S rule isn’t the right approach either.

“Very problematic for agriculture,” Miller-Meeks says, “for farmers, for ranchers.” The Trump Administration’s Clean Water Act rules cut the number of wetlands subject to federal oversight by 51 percent." Several news outlets report the Biden Administration is expected to revert to 2008 Clean Water Act rules, from the Bush Administration, until the EPA’s rewrite is completed.