Political Quotes

“Mr. President, before I start quoting, this is a story about a California farmer by the name of John Duarte, of Tehama County, CA. The title is ``One farmer's ordeal may signal agencies' actions under WOTUS.'' All John Duarte did was hire a guy to plow some grazing land so that he could raise wheat on 450 acres that his family had purchased in California's Tehama County, north of Sacramento. The land had been planted to wheat in the past. The wheat market was favorable and the farmer made sure to avoid some wet spots in the field, called vernal pools, which are considered wetlands. But that plowing, which disturbed only the top few inches of soil, unleashed a firestorm from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other regulators against the California Farm Bureau member. The regulators' actions stopped Duarte from raising wheat, tried to force him to pay millions of dollars to restore the wetlands in perpetuity--although there was no evidence of damage--and sparked lawsuits and counter-lawsuits. Duarte's experience could well turn out to be an example of how the agencies will treat farmers in Iowa and all over the country under the expansive Waters of the United States rule, according to Duarte, his attorneys and experts at the American Farm Bureau Federation.…”