“Regardless of one’s party, everyone can agree that duplicative and costly red-tape requirements that provide no additional health or environmental benefits do not make sense.”

—Rep. Bob Gibbs, R-Ohio, chairman of the Water Resources Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That is at the core of what is wrong with an attempt by the Environmental Protection Agency to extend bureaucratic regulation into areas where it does not belong.

Western water users have become increasingly concerned about the number of environmental regulations and policies that are currently being rewritten or reconsidered. In particular, recent rulemaking efforts at EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality carry the risk of doing harm to Western irrigators and the communities that they serve.

In June 2010, EPA released its draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for point source discharges from the application of pesticides to waters of the United States. This permit is also known as the Pesticide General Permit. EPA intends to finalize the PGP during July.

Western agricultural water users currently apply aquatic herbicides, using federally regulated chemicals and methods, to keep water delivery systems clear and free from aquatic weeds. They do so to provide for efficient delivery of water, avoid flooding, promote water conservation and help avoid water quality problems associated with other methods of aquatic weed control.

Now EPA will require they first complete a complicated, technical permit process before those activities can be done. This even though the application of aquatic herbicides in canals, ditches, drains and other irrigation delivery and drainage facilities is statutorily exempt under the Clean Water Act.

Congress responded with the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act (HR 872), introduced by Rep. Gibbs, which blocks EPA from requiring the PGP. The measure passed the U.S. House by a two-thirds majority and is being considered by the U.S. Senate.

Let’s be clear about what the PGP actually amounts to: A double-permitting, red-tape requirement imposed by the EPA that represents unabashed, out-of-control, regulatory bureaucracy at its worst. Why? Because the PGP would be layered on top of tough regulatory requirements already in place for almost 40 years. Moreover, it’s being pushed by people with no clue whatsoever of the impact it will have on Western irrigated agriculture and other sectors of our society that rely upon the beneficial use of various pesticide products.

There are numerous crucial technical and legal aspects of the PGP that thoroughly discredit its basic premise:

• It mandates costly and burdensome requirements that do not exist in laws passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the president. This will adversely impact water delivery, control of mosquitoes and other pests, and weed and algae control in our pristine lakes.

• The proposed permit uses a regulatory definition inconsistent with the current judicial interpretation, it incorporates language from antiquated definitions, and it effectively attempts by administrative action to overturn Supreme Court precedent.

• Canals, ditches, drains and other irrigation delivery and drainage facilities are not uniformly “waters of the U.S.” EPA is using the PGP as a vehicle to summarily and inappropriately extend its regulatory jurisdiction.

• The EPA requirements are far beyond the capacity of small government irrigation districts, and small nonprofit canal company organizations that are responsible for water delivery systems that often cover hundreds or thousands of square miles. They simply do not have the staff or the budget to identify all areas with aquatic weed or algae problems, identify all target weed species, identify all possible factors contributing to the problem, establish past or present densities or any of the other proposed documentation requirements.

Western agricultural water users irrigate millions of acres of farmland, as well as residential subdivisions, parks, schools, yards and other irrigated lands. They are hard-working, conscientious stewards of the land and of the waters that fuel the economic and social quality of life for millions of Americans. The PGP would be a burdensome, unnecessary millstone laid on their backs for no practical or necessary reason. It has nothing to do with clean water and everything to do unbridled governmental expansion and environmental extremism run amok.

The ultimate answer is not to allow EPA more regulatory authority, but rather to enact legislation that eliminates this unnecessary and onerous double-permitting requirement. The House has already approved HR 872. It is time for the U.S. Senate to follow suit.