Pruitt says nation's biggest challenge is re-defining the meaning of environmental protection

Pruitt speaks as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
listens. (Image from Kentucky Farm Bureau video)

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told an audience of farmers and Kentucky officials Monday that "The greatest challenge we have in this country is re-orienting thinking about what environmental protection is."

Pruitt said at a Kentucky Farm Bureau event in Bourbon County, "True environmental protection is not 'do not touch,' and that's what the other side says . . . we shouldn't harvest or use those natural resources. We should just put up a fence and say 'Do not touch." That's not true environmental protection. True environmental protection is using those natural resources to truly feed the world and power the world, and doing so with stewardship in mind, responsibility in mind, for future generations, and you do that every single day. We at EPA can learn a lot from you in that regard."

Pruitt reminded farmers that he is withdrawing the Obama administration's definition of "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act, which he and farm interests said was too broad. "Make no mistake about it, the EPA's definition in 2015 was about one thing, and one thing only: power. The power over land-use decisions across this country; the power to make you check in with Washington, D.C., before you use your land as you always have."

Pruitt said EPA will have new definition in 2019, and "It's going to be an objective, bright-line definition so that you know where federal jurisdiction begins and ends." He said a decision of the late Justice Antonin Scalia "is going to inspire us." In that case, Scalia wrote in a non-controlling decision that "waters of the U.S." should follow the dictionary definition and be limited to relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water.

Pruitt, a native of Central Kentucky, said he liked an idea he heard in Utah: "Don't just tell us what a water of the United States is, tell us what it isn't." For a video of the event, click here.