The farm bill conference report could be filed as early as Monday and released the following day, a week later than originally planned. Farm bill negotiators said it took longer than expected last week to get the cost estimates and legislative text ironed out.

 

The bill will preserve the structure of the 2014 farm bill with a variety of enhancements to a variety of programs, including the major commodity programs for row crops and milk, as well as expand the Conservation Reserve Program and provide new funding for fighting animal diseases.

 

Also on Tuesday, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are expected to release a proposed WOTUS rule that would redefine the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act more narrowly than a rule issued by the Obama administration in 2015.

 

According to EPA talking points, the new rule will be “clear and easy to understand” and will help landowners “understand whether a project on his or her property will require a federal permit or not, without spending tens of thousands of dollars on engineering and legal professionals.”

 

The EPA document also says the rule will eliminate ephemeral streams and most ditches from federal jurisdiction as well as wetlands that aren’t “physically and meaningfully connected to other jurisdictional waters.”

Lawmakers seek to move their long-awaited farm bill this week, and the Trump administration is set to release a new “waters of the U.S.” rule that would remove ephemeral streams and many wetlands from federal jurisdiction.

 

The rule is expected to be challenged in court, but administration officials said they were crafting it in line with the 2006 Rapanos decision written by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in which the court split 4-1-4. The Obama rule was written to appeal to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was replaced this year by Brett Kavanaugh, who is expected to follow Scalia’s reasoning.

 

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