Attorney General Leslie Rutledge testified before a U.S. Senate committee Tuesday on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule to broaden its authority over waterways nationwide under the Clean Water Act.
Rutledge told the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry that Arkansas’s economy would be devastated by the proposed changes, and that farmers in the state's Delta region would be crippled.
“If you’re a farmer in Arkansas trying to determine whether or not one of your fields would fall under this proposed rule, you would look to this. Nearly every farmer in Arkansas would have to obtain legal council to determine whether or not a field on their land falls under this EPA proposed rule,” said Rutledge.
In a press release, the Sierra Club of Arkansas responded to Rutledge’s statement noting this is the third EPA ruling she has objected to so far in her term.
“Well-crafted environmental protections help everyone, and we are ill-served by an Attorney General who reflexively opposes any and all attempts to protect our natural resources,” it stated.
Rutledge was one of panelists from ten states responding to the EPA’s proposed rule change at the Senate committee hearing.
