Many have been watching the controversy unfolding around the Clean Water Rule. This straightforward rule-making process intended to clarify and streamline clean water protections was immediately blown out of proportion by special interests. Now, after taking into consideration the more than one million comments it received, the EPA has finalized a Clean Water Rule and it’s even better than the draft rule released last year.
Nevertheless, special interest groups are still bent on disrupting the process. They have turned to lawmakers in Congress, encouraging the passage of legislation that would make this entire rule-making procedure moot. An example of such legislation is S. 1140, which passed the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on June 10th.
As this legislation moves through Congress, it’s important that Minnesota’s Senators don’t go down in history as voting for dirty water. However, Senator Amy Klobuchar’s track record is not clean: in March of this year, she voted for Sen. Barasso’s nonbinding amendment that would have stymied the Clean Water Rule procedure. While she has more recently said that she supports the rule-making process, she is also still under the impression that she needs to “continue pushing the EPA to ensure that any future guidance strikes a balance between protecting Minnesota’s waters and being workable for rural communities.”
Sen. Klobuchar needs to know that clean water is not at odds with rural communities! We, like everyone else, depend on clean water, and in some cases, our livelihoods are built on reliable access to clean water. The Center for Rural Affairs has put together this great sign-on letter from a rural perspective; let Amy know that YOU are rural and YOU support clean water!
