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• Who will be responsible for a consistent wetland inventory in order to 

 monitor restoration, regulatory impacts on economic 

 growthydevelopment and land values? 



• Will the Administration or Congress clarify when wetland restrictions 

 become a "taking" of private property and therefore requires 

 compensation? 



• Will the Administration or Congress compensate landowners for the 

 protection of wetlands, or are individual landowners responsible for 

 the cost of protecting the national wetland resource base? 



• Will the Administration and Congress support wetland regulations 

 that require a cost/benefit approach to balance private property 

 rights, environmental quality, economic growth, and public health 

 and safety with the benefits of the wetland protection/alteration? 



Farm Bureau recommends: The goal of wetland protection should be 

 directly related to water quality standards in the Clean Water Act and based 

 on the scientific contribution wetlands have in managing water quality for 

 human health and safety. The Administration and Congress should recognize 

 and differentiate functions and values of existing wetlands and protect existing 

 wetlands through a strategy of permits, compensation and mitigation. 



Furthermore, the goal of increasing the quantity and quality of wetlands 

 should be achieved through a voluntary, non-regulatory strategy. Voluntary 

 strategies and efforts to restore degraded wetlands, as well as previously 

 drained wetlands, should focus on the quantity of wetlands necessary to 

 achieve the water quality standards for human health and safety. Tying the 

 desire for an increase in quantity of wetlands to water quality standards puts a 

 scientifically supportable and potentially definable cap on the amount of 

 increase, rather than leaving the amount of increase totally open-ended. 



Classification of Wetlands 



Changes to Section 404 should include a system of classifying wetlands, 

 recognizing that not all wetlands share the same ecological value or perform 

 the same functions. Those that are truly unique may be deserving of greater 

 protection, whereas those that are marginal or only technically meet wetlands 

 criteria should be subject to less stringent oversight. 



Farm Bureau strongly recommends that the federal government adopt a 

 standard method for inventorying wetlands which includes soil taxonomy as 

 the basis for determining wetland soils, classifies wetlands on the basis of 



