Members of the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) announced their support for Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Trump Administration.
President-Elect Donald Trump tapped Pruitt to be his EPA Secretary earlier this month, Breitbart News reported.
“We anticipate Scott Pruitt, as administrator, understands that common-sense policies are needed by EPA, not burdensome regulations that threaten the livelihood of those who work every day with natural resources,” TFB President Russell Boening of Poth said in a written statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “We’re confident Scott Pruitt will steer EPA to end the aggressive and punitive approach to regulating that has unfortunately become the agency’s trademark in recent years.”
Boeing said that Pruitt intends to run the EPA “in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.” This would include our nation’s farmers who have been targeted with excessive water regulations by the current administration.
The TFB president previously pointed out one area where the EPA’s overreach has had a negative impact on Texas Farmers, Breitbart Texas reported last week. At that time, Boeing called the EPA’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule one of the agency’s “worst ideas.” He hopes to work with the Trump Administration and Pruitt to limit regulations like this and the EPA’s continued overreach.
The WOTUS rule interpreted the Clean Water Act (CWA) to apply to “almost any piece of land that gets wet and puddles,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a Breitbart News article published in August 2015. Previously, the CWA had been interpreted to only include “navigable waterways.”
Pruitt has repeatedly sued the EPA over its environmental overreach of regulations. “Respect for private property rights have allowed our nation to thrive, but with the recently finalized rule, farmers, ranchers, developers, industry and individual property owners will now be subject to the unpredictable, unsound and often Byzantine regulatory regime of the EPA,” Pruitt said in 2015.
“Farmers and ranchers want a different philosophy at EPA. Mr. Pruitt is an individual who represents the real change at an agency that has been adversarial against family farmers and ranchers for too long,” Boening concluded.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.