Pruitt Urges Ranchers to Submit WOTUS Comments

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt urges farmers and ranchers to submit official comments on the repeal of the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule before the Agency's deadline of Monday, Aug. 28, 2017. 

In a video released by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Pruitt said, “When comments are made a part of a record - as rule-making - we have an obligation to review them. It helps inform our decision-making process; it helps us make better decisions. And so we want farmers and ranchers across this country to provide comments." 

The video was filmed during a visit that Pruitt and his senior staff made earlier this month to the Frasier Ranch, located just outside Last Chance, Colorado. During the visit, part of the Administrator's nationwide "State Action Tour," Pruitt met with and solicited input from several dozen local ranchers about how to proceed after the Obama-era WOTUS is repealed. 

"We're trying to fix the challenges from the 2015 rule, where the Obama Administration re-imagined their authority under the Clean Water Act and defined a Water of the United States as being a puddle, a dry creek bed, and ephemeral drainage ditches across this country, which created great uncertainty... and we are fixing that, and then we're hearing from stakeholders about how to get it right as we go forward," Pruitt said. 

NCBA has opposed the Waters of the U.S. rule, and cattle producers can file official comments through the NCBA's website or here.