Today, Montana Stockgrowers Association’s (MSGA) Executive Vice President, Raylee Honeycutt, shared the organization’s continued request for certainty and clarity regarding the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule during the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) agricultural stakeholders listening session. Honeycutt was the only speaker among the 45 speakers from across the country that represented Montana agriculture.
In recent years, MSGA has voiced its strong disappointment in the Biden administration’s harmful WOTUS rule. At the end of 2022, the EPA finalized the latest WOTUS rule overbearing and far-reaching rulemaking including ephemeral features and isolated features being subject to federal jurisdiction, and activities like stock pond construction and grassed waterway maintenance potentially requiring Clean Water Act permits. Since then, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Sackett v. EPA decision, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Court’s ruling limited EPA’s authority to regulate wetlands under the CWA, focusing on those with a continuous surface connection to traditional navigable waters. This decision was seen as a win for cattle producers, as it reduced the uncertainty and potential costs associated with complying with the rule; however until recently no movement had been made by the agency to update the rule.
“MSGA welcomes every opportunity to work towards a solution with the agency and follow stakeholders on a final definition of WOTUS,” shared Honeycutt. “Agriculture is Montana’s largest industry. Over 93 million acres of rugged mountains, deep valleys and wide-open plains are affected in Montana by this rule. Roughly 60 million of those acres are used for farm and ranch production. Overbearing, unclear, and inconsistent policy is crippling to family-owned ranches, business, and our state’s economy.”
In addition to the comments made by MSGA during the stakeholder listening session, MSGA, last week, submitted written comments to expand on recommendations. In the organization’s comments, it highlighted that Montana ranchers have expertly managed water on their land for generations, and that ranchers are seeking an easy-to-understand definition that allows for straightforward implementation, clarity, and certainty. Additionally, MSGA advocated ditches and water developments such as irrigation and drainage ditches need not be considered jurisdictional as they often lack any significant downstream connection to natural, navigable waters, encouraged the reinstatement of clear exclusions for agricultural-specific features including prior converted cropland (PCC) and stock ponds, and recommended that EPA return to the Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR) definition wherein tributaries are only jurisdictional if they are perennial or intermittent and connected to navigable waters.
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MSGA – 2025
