Source: http://thiswestisourwest.com/index.cfm/in-the-news/epa-disregard-for-wotus-prior-converted-cropland-exclusion-kills-ag-jobs-and-contributes-to-national-security-risk/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:05:52+00:00

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The Obama administration regulation inter alia treats all “wetlands” adjacent to WOTUS as “jurisdictional waters” for purposes of enforcing CWA’s controversial Section 404 (dredge and fill permitting requirements). It does so by dispensing with the traditional case-by-case evaluations used to determine if jurisdiction applies to specific delineated wetlands.7 Although this regulation also states that the longstanding “prior converted cropland” (“PCC”) exclusion from WOTUS jurisdiction will be upheld,8 this result is not certain, and can be assured only through active ongoing White House oversight.
PCCs are wetlands that had, prior to December 23, 1985, commenced being drained, dredged, filled, leveled, or otherwise manipulated for the purpose or effect of making the production of an agricultural commodity possible, where such production would not have been possible but for such action, and before such action such land was wetland and neither highly erodible land nor highly erodible cropland.13 The NFSAM added three conditions to secure PCC status. First, the agricultural commodity must have been planted at least once prior to December 23, 1985. Second, the area must not have been “abandoned.”14 The NFSAM defined abandonment as “the cessation of cropping, management, or maintenance operations on prior converted croplands,” including “repair of drainage system” (emphasis added).15 It considered a PCC abandoned “if wetland criteria are present and” the PCC “has not been used, managed or maintained for cropping purposes for 5 successive years, and was not enrolled in a USDA [...] program of conserving use or wetland restoration” (emphasis added).16 Third, the NFSAM deemed a wetland conversion “commenced” if “any of the construction activities including flood water reductions that would convert [a] wetland were actually started,” or substantial funds had been expended or legally committed for the direct purpose of converting the wetland.17 As long as the USDA Farm Services Agency had issued a commenced conversion determination by September 19, 1988 designating that “commenced” activities had begun before December 23, 1985, the NFSAM and subsequent USDA regulations provided that conversion activities could be completed up until January 1, 199518 without compromising PCC status.
Moreover, the persistent harassment of my clients by EPA and the Corps, since 2009, provides even more evidence of agency wetlands recidivism. In fact, on January 9, 2017, only 11 days prior to President Trump’s inauguration, EPA filed two new lawsuits against the Brace family farm. They allege CWA Section 404 permitting violations for activities undertaken on two contiguous and adjacent farm fields/properties otherwise qualifying for the PCC exclusion from WOTUS and CWA 404 jurisdiction. The aim of one suit is to enforce alleged violations of an ambiguous 21-year-old wetlands consent decree covering one such parcel, while the likely objective of the other suit is to secure and enforce a more defined and restrictive wetlands consent dec37ree to cover the second, and perhaps, a third contiguous parcel.
However, aggressive EPA rulemaking and overenforcement is not the only major threat posed to the livelihood of small and medium-sized American family farms. Based on this author’s experience, U.S. agricultural production is also placed at risk by misguided environmental and wildlife activist-led39 Interior Department fish-first (i.e., Endangered Species Act (“ESA”)40 and tribal trust policy-based41) water reallocation schemes. Negotiated with the federal government as a fiduciary party in interest, and implemented on either a regional, interstate or intrastate basis, these schemes bypass state-recognized prior appropriated water rights42 to severely reduce access to available irrigation water,43 resulting in diminished crop harvests, thinned cattle herds, and decreased farmer/rancher profits.44 Together, these overzealous federal agency rulemaking and enforcement practices help to shrink the U.S. agriculture labor pool45 and trade surplus,46 which only further compromises U.S. national food security and raises the likelihood that Americans will increasingly depend on unsafe and unsecure third world food imports47 to make up the difference.
It would appear from President Trump’s most recently issued Executive Order “Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America,”48 the goals of which inter alia include regulatory revision, promoting rural economic prosperity and preserving family farms,49 that he gets the point quite clearly. This E.O. mandates an interagency regulatory review process which is to be coordinated with the agency regulatory reviews mandated by E.O. 13778 discussed above50 and E.O. 13771.51 If this effort creates the necessary synergies that can actually secure reductions in the costs and burdens associated with both agricultural and environmental regulations,52 then perhaps the President’s campaign pledge to protect agricultural sector jobs and national security may be realized. Since E.O. 13771 does not apply to EPA, which is an independent regulatory agency,53 while E.O. 13778 does,54 it remains questionable how much progress can truly be achieved.
Presumably, the White House will embark upon this endeavor prior to commencing an agricultural trade war with our neighbor to the north. Washington lobbyists representing large U.S. dairy producers the exports of which are being undercut by lower cost protectionist-inspired Canadian protein processing rules, have called upon the President to act immediately.55 No doubt, there is an urgent need to curtail foreign disguised regulatory trade barriers that harm U.S. agricultural exports.56 Nevertheless, U.S. domestic food safety and environmental regulations have, since 2009, steadily incorporated unscientific international law standards57 contributing significantly to the economic pain now being experienced by dairy and other farmers. Were the President to first successfully address U.S. federal agency regulatory and enforcement impositions—of the type discussed above—on Americans’ economic freedom58 of the type discussed above, he would surely initiate his success as the leader of the free world.
* Lawrence A. Kogan is Managing Principal of The Kogan Law Group, P.C. New York, New York and President of the Princeton, NJ-based nonprofit Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development. Mr. Kogan currently serves as defense counsel representing the Brace family in EPA-re-initiated litigation, and as counsel to the Siskiyou County Water Users Association. He recently served on the Trump Agency Landing Team for the Office of United States Trade Representative, and formerly served as the legal representative of the Klamath Irrigation District, the County of Siskiyou, California, and a small group of farmers operating in the Flathead Irrigation Project located on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana.
See United States v. Mills, 817 F. Supp. 1546 (N.D. Fla. 1993), (referring to “the disturbing implications of the expansive jurisdiction which has been assumed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act,” and to the CWA as a “regulatory hydra.”).
See The President, Executive Order 13778 - Restoring the Rule of Law, Federalism and Economic Growth by Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ Rule, 82 FR 12497 (Feb. 28, 2017).
See U.S. Department of Defense Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Water Rule: Definition of ‘Waters of the United States’—Final Rule (June 29, 2015), 80 FR 37054.
See State of Ohio, et al. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, et al., Civil Case Nos. 15-3799/3822/3853/3887 (6th Circ. Oct. 9, 2015).
See 80 FR at 37059.
See Food Security Act of 1985, P.L. 99-198, 99 Sta. 1354 (Dec. 23, 1985).
See United States Environmental Protection Agency, Section 404 of the Clean Water Act - Section 404 and Swampbuster: Wetlands on Agricultural Lands.
See Food Security Act of 1985, P.L. 99-198, supra at Title VII, Subtitle C, Sec. 1221, codified at 16 U.S.C. 3821.
See United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service, National Food Security Act Manual, Title 180 Second Edition (Aug. 1988), at Sec. 512.31.
See Food Security Act of 1985, P.L. 99-198, supra at Secs. 1201(a)(7)(A), 1201(a)(11)(A), 1201(a)(27) and 1222(b)(1)(A), codified at 16 U.S.C. 3801(a)(7)(A), 3801(a)(11)(A) and 3801(a)(27), and 16 U.S.C. 3822(b)(1)(A).
See United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service, National Food Security Act Manual, Title 180 Second Edition (Aug. 1988), supra at Sec. 512.15 (a).
Id., at Sec. 512.31(a). The January 1, 1995 completion date was set forth in a final USDA regulation implementing the FSA issued on and deemed effective as of September 17, 1987 (amending the prior interim rule of June 27, 1986), and reaffirmed in a later interim final USDA regulation. See 52 FR 35194, 35197 (Sept. 17, 1987), available at: cdn.loc.gov; 61 FR 47019, 47024 (Sept. 6, 1996), available at: gpo.gov.
See U.S. Department of Defense Army Corps of Engineers, Regulatory Guidance Letter 90-07—Subject: Clarification of the Phrase ‘Normal Circumstances’ as it Pertains to Cropped Wetlands (Sept. 26, 1990), at Sec. 5.d, (expired, Dec. 21, 1993).
See US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station, Corps of Engineers Wetlands Delineation Manual (Jan. 1987).
See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Wetland Identification Delineation Manual (W.S. Sipple, ed., Wash., D.C. 1988), discussed in Wetlands Characteristics and Boundaries, Committee on Characterization of Wetlands, National Research Council (1995), at p. 71, (“EPA stated, as had USACE, that it was following the ‘three-parameter’ definition of wetlands found in USACE and EPA regulations and based on hydrology, soils, and vegetation. The 1988 EPA manual, however, allows delineators to rely on vegetation alone for routine delineations and when obligate wetland or upland species are dominant.”).
See U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USDA Soil Conservation Service, Federal Manual for Identifying and Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands—An Interagency Cooperative Publication (Jan. 10, 1989).
See Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 1992, P.L. 102-104, 105 Stat. 510, 518 (prohibiting the Corps from using funds to identify jurisdictional waters using the Federal Manual); Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, 1993, P.L. 102-377, 106 Stat. 1315, 1324-25 (mandating that the Corps use the 1987 Manual until a new manual was published after public notice and comment). See also 58 FR at 45032.
See Environmental Law Institute, Wetlands Protection Workbook Prepared for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (March 13, 1991), at pp. 11-12.
See United States v. Brace, 41 F.3d 117 (3rd Cir. 1994), cert. denied, 515 U.S. 1158 (1995); United States Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division, Environment Defense Section, Notice of Lodging of Consent Decree Pursuant to Clean Water Act, 61 FR 42055 (Aug. 13, 1996).
See United States Environmental Protection Agency, Wetland Fact Sheet #20: Clean Water Act §404(f) Exemptions, EPA843-F-93-001 (March 1993).
See United States Environmental Protection Agency and United States Department of the Army, Memorandum: Clean Water Act Section 404 Regulatory Program and Agricultural Activities (May 3, 1990).
See United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water, Agriculture & Wetlands: A Compilation of Fact Sheets, EPA503/9-92-003 (Aug. 1992), at pp. 2, 7, 11-12.
See White House Office on Environmental Policy, Protecting America’s Wetlands: A Fair, Flexible, and Effective Approach (Aug. 24, 1993).
Id., at Section V.C, pp. 9-10.
See also U.S. Department of Defense Department of the Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Water Act Regulatory Programs—Final Rule, 58 FR 45008, 45031-45035 (Aug. 25, 1993), (amending 33 CFR 328.3(a) by adding new paragraph (a)(8); amending 40 CFR 110.1, 40 CFR 230.3, 40 CFR 232.3).
See Transition to Green: Leading the Way to a Healthy Environment, A Green Economy and a Sustainable Future, ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSITION RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION (NOV. 2008).
Id., at pp. 10-6, 10-7.
See United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, From Preventing Pollution of Navigable and Interstate Waters to Regulating Farm Fields, Puddles and Dry Land: A Senate Report on the Expansion of Jurisdiction Claimed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act (hereinafter “Senate EPW Report” (114th Cong., 2 Sess. Sept. 20, 2016), supra at pp. 2, 17-18.
The joint EPA-Corps regulations indicated that PCC status would be lost if the land was “abandoned” because they reverted to wetlands. See 58 FR at 45033. PCC status would not be lost even if the land use changed to nonagricultural use. See United States v. Hallmark Construction Co., 30 F. Supp. 2d 1033, 1040 (N.D. Ill. 1998). See also Kristine A. Tidgren, Prior Converted Cropland: a 2015 Review (Aug. 27, 2015).
See New Hope Power Co. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 746 F. Supp. 2d 1272, 1284 (S.D. Fl. 2010).
See The Kogan Law Group, P.C., United States v. Brace, Summary of Facts & Findings of 30-Year “WOTUS” Case.
Based on this author’s experience, the EPA and USDOJ-ENRD bureaucracies have kept critical information regarding ongoing litigation and legacy policies from the previous Obama administration from, and stymied new initiatives of, Trump cabinet members and their chosen appointees (e.g., EPA Administrator Pruitt, Attorney General Sessions and ENRD’s Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeff Woods). These phenomena also have been reported by the media. See Michael Bastasch, ‘I Will Name Names’: Infighting At EPA Drives Top Official To Resign, Daily Caller (March 19, 2017); Timothy Cama, Trump Appointee Steps Down at EPA, The Hill (March 16, 2017); Kevin Bogardus, Questions Trail Agency Critic’s Exit, Greenwire (March 16, 2017); Andrew Restuccia, Marianne Levine and Nahal Toosi, Federal Workers Turn to Encryption to Thwart Trump, Politico (Feb. 2, 2017), (discussing how federal career employees at EPA and the Departments of State and Labor, “worried that President Donald Trump will gut their agencies, are creating new email addresses, signing up for encrypted messaging apps and looking for other, protected ways to push back against the new administration’s agenda.”). See also John Siciliano, Judicial Watch Sues EPA Over Use of Software to Undermine Trump, Washington Examiner (April 12, 2017), (“discussing how nonprofit Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request in federal district court “seeking all ‘communications sent or received by EPA officials who may have used the cell phone encryption application ‘Signal’ to thwart government oversight and transparency’” required by FOIA.); Ralph R. Smith, Another FOIA Lawsuit for the EPA, FedSmith.com (April 17, 2017) (discussing how a similar FOIA lawsuit had previously been filed by the group Cause of Action against EPA in February).
See, e.g. National Wildlife Fed’n v. Marsh, No. 82-3632 (D.D.C. filed Dec. 22, 1982) (compelling USACE regulatory changes to acknowledge EPA’s CWA 404(b) guidelines as mandatory rather than voluntary); Avoyelles Sportsmen’s League v. Marsh, 715 F.2d 897 (5th Cir. 1983) (compelling further USACE regulatory changes extending CWA 404 regulatory coverage over agricultural clearing, drainage, and channeling of wetlands). These cases, which triggered regulatory changes, evidence how EPA and Corps officials worked alongside green activists seeking higher wetlands protection standards to focus on the uneasy relationship between an FSA-sanctioned USDA-SCS prior converted cropland determination and the threshold CWA jurisdictional determination on “waters of the United States” status.
See Endangered Species Act, P.L. 93-205, 87 Stat. 884 (Dec. 28, 1973).
See Lawrence A. Kogan, A UN and Tribal Takeover?, Canada Free Press (Sept. 17, 2016); The Kogan Law Group, P.C., Summary of Write-Ups for Western States Constitutional Rights, LLC (Oct. 27, 2016), (identifying ways in which federal agencies promote the so-called tribal trust obligation in protection of aboriginal Indian reserved water rights).
See Lawrence A. Kogan, Who Owns the Water in the West? An Overview of the Challenges Facing Private Prior Appropriation & Federal Reserved Water Rights, presented at Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law 2nd Symposium Energy & the Environment: The Interplay of Regulations and Natural Resources Law & Policy, (Lexington, KY, March 2, 2016); nebula.wsimg.com (KJEANRL program); law.uky.edu (speaker bios).
See The Kogan Law Group, P.C., Summary of Write-Ups for Western States Constitutional Rights, LLC, (Oct. 27, 2016), supra (identifying the various ways in which Congress and the Interior Department reallocate water away from Montana and other western irrigators to Native American tribes); Lawrence A. Kogan, White House as Originator and Promoter of Klamath Basin Agreements, Canada Free Press (Sept. 8, 2016); Theodora Johnson, More Troubled Waters on the Klamath, Western Livestock Journal (April 29, 2016).
See Todd Fitchette, Will Westside Farmers Receive Full Water Allocation?, Western FarmPress (March 1, 2017); Carolyn Lochhead, Low Water Allocation Angers California Farmers, SFGate (April 4, 2016), available; Marcel Aillery, Noel Gollehon, Glenn Schaible, Michael Roberts and William Quinby, Policy Directions to Mitigate Water-Supply Risk in Irrigated Agriculture: A Federal Perspective, presented at 2004 American Agricultural Economics Association annual meeting, Denver, CO (Aug.2004) at pp. 4-5, (discussing inter alia how “[a] A 20-percent reduction in Reclamation deliveries westwide, for example, would affect up to 15.4 percent of total irrigated acres in the 17 Western states, resulting in an estimated decline in farm revenue of up to $1.26 billion, or 2.7 percent of total returns to irrigated crop production,” and how, “n general, states in the Pacific and Mountain region have the largest share of Reclamation-supplied areas, and are most significantly affected by restrictions on Reclamation water.”).
See Legislation Supports Young People in Ag, Feedstuffs (March 29, 2017); Jim Dayton, As Farmers Age, Agriculture Industry Tries to Recruit, Retain Young Farmers, GazetteXtra (March 27, 2017), Sophia Saliby, Young People Joining Agriculture Industry Face Tough Conditions, Indiana Public Media (Jan. 6, 2017); Taylor McCormick, Why Younger Generations Hesitate to Choose Farming Careers, Southeast Farm Press (Oct. 28, 2014); Mark Koba, Shortage of Farmers Creates ‘Dangerous Situation’ for U.S., NBC News (April 15, 2014); Joseph Cress, Future of Farming: Fewer Youth Getting Involved, The Sentinel (Jan. 11, 2014); Jesse McDougall, The Agricultural Cliff: Farmers Are Aging, and Young People Have to Step In, The Daily Good (Dec. 12, 2012); Jason Fearneyhough, The Importance of Agriculture Cannot be Undersold, Wyoming Department of Agriculture (2012), .
See United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Agricultural Trade, (“U.S. [agricultural] trade surplus smallest since 2007”).
See Lawrence Kogan and Bruce J. Moran, National Security: Protecting Private Property and the U.S. Food Supply Against Federal Government Abuse of Wildlife and Tribal Policies, Information Memorandum to Donald J. Trump for President (July 12, 2016).
See The White House, Presidential Executive Order Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America (April 25, 2017).
Id., at Secs. 4(a)(i) and (viii) and 4(b).
See 82 FR 12497 (Feb. 28, 2017), supra.
See The White House, Presidential Executive Order 13771—Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs (Jan. 30, 2017). See also The White House, Memorandum: Implementing Executive Order 13771, Titled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” Office of Management and Budget Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (April 5, 2017).
See The White House, Presidential Executive Order Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America (April 25, 2017), supra at Sec. 4(c).
The White House, Memorandum: Implementing Executive Order 13771, Titled “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs,” Office of Management and Budget Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (April 5, 2017), supra at Sec. III.Q.1. See also National Archives and Records Administration, Independent Federal Agencies.
See The White House, Presidential Executive Order Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America (April 25, 2017), supra at Sec. 4(c). See also 82 FR 12497, supra at Sec. 2.
See Sean Kilpatrick, A Guide to Understanding the Dairy Dispute Between the U.S. and Canada, The Globe and Mail (April 25, 2017); Adam Behsudi, Why Trump is Starting a Trade War With Canada, Politico (April 25, 2017); Mike Blanchfield, Fact check: Do Canada’s Efforts to Help Dairy Farmers Hurt U.S. Counterparts?, CTV News (April 20, 2017); Caitlin Dewey, Canada-U.S. dairy Trade War Escalates Amid Fears Some American Farmers May ‘Have to Sell the Cows’, Financial Post (April 18, 2017); Reuters, Trump Vows to ‘Stand Up for Our Dairy Farmers’ in ‘One-Sided Deal’ with Canada, Fortune (April 18, 2017).
See, e.g., Lawrence A. Kogan, The European Strategy to Become the New Global Standards-Setter: A Compendium/i>, Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development, presented at U.S. Agricultural Export Development Council FY 2011 Annual Workshop, Session II - “The EU: World’s New Standard-Setter” Baltimore, Maryland (Nov. 17, 2010); Lawrence A. Kogan, Hong Kong’s Draft Infant Formula & Complementary Foods Marketing Code Violates WTO Law (Part 1 of 3), LexisNexis Emerging Issues 7046 (2013); Lawrence A. Kogan, Discerning the Forest From the Trees: How Governments Use Ostensibly Private and Voluntary Standards to Avoid WTO Culpability, Global Trade and Customs Journal, Vol. 2, Issue 9 (2007); Lawrence A. Kogan, World Trade Organization Biotech Decision Clarifies Central Role of Science in Evaluating Health and Environmental Risks for Regulation Purposes, Global Trade and Customs Journal, Vol. 2, Issue 3 (March 2007); Lawrence A. Kogan, REACH Revisited: A Framework for Evaluating Whether a Non-Tariff Measure Has Matured into an Actionable Non-Tariff Barrier to Trade, 28 American University International Law Review 489 (2013).
See Lucas Bergkamp and Lawrence A. Kogan, Trade, the Precautionary Principle, and Post-Modern Regulatory Process: Regulatory Convergence in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, European Journal of Risk Regulation, Vol. 4, Issue 4 (2013); Lawrence A. Kogan, Revised U.S. Deep Seabed Mining Policy Reflects UNCLOS and Other International Environmental Law Obligations, LexisNexis Emerging Issues 6893 (2013); Lawrence A. Kogan, What Goes Around Comes Around: How UNCLOS Ratification Will Herald Europe’s Precautionary Principle as U.S. Law, 7 Santa Clara J. Int’l L. 23 (2009).

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