Governor Cooper Hangs Farmers Out to Dry | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    Raleigh, NC     Last week Governor Cooper and Attorney General Stein withdrew North Carolina from litigation challenging government overreach on farmers. The Obama administration expanded the Clean Water Act, which establishes federal jurisdiction over navigable waters, by instituting the Waters of the US (WOTUS) rule, therefore bolstering federal jurisdiction to also include small streams and marshes that affect the navigable waters. The majority of these smaller waters are located on private property and farms, which means the federal government could gain control of private farm land.

    "Roy Cooper has shamelessly abandoned North Carolina farmers simply to appease special interest groups and trial lawyers. Republicans such as Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler and former Governor Pat McCrory fought to block the federal government from taking farmland away from hard-working North Carolinians. Without any notice or explanation to the farming community, Roy Cooper has made it clear that he thinks Washington D.C. knows our farmland better than the people in this state." - NCGOP Chairman Robin Hayes

    "It is an overreach of federal authority on private property," said Larry Wooten, president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau. "It gives the federal government control of farm land in North Carolina. We all support clean water, but this is more than about clean water - it's about control of the land." (North State Journal)

    North Carolina was one of thirty states to sue the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers for this massive overreach.

    Background

    North Carolina was one of thirty states to sue the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers for this overreach, but last week the Cooper administration quietly withdrew North Carolina from the lawsuit. "In a quiet move last week, the Cooper administration retreated from litigation that challenges a series of aggressive Obama-era environmental regulations." ... "North Carolina originally signed on with 30 other states to sue the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers for what they felt was a federal overreach." (Mollie Young, "Cooper Administration Withdraws from WOTUS Lawsuit," North State Journal, 4/26/2017)

• Contact: Emily Weeks
•     Emily.Weeks@ncgop.org