Permitting

Congress has traditionally delegated the power of permit issuance to a number of regulatory agencies, including the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency. The mandate for those agencies rests, however, on the strength of the legislation they are charged with executing, such as the 1972 Clean Water Act or 1987 Water Quality Act. Congress can help manage agricultural water impacts by implementing new environmental legislation calling for any one of a variety of nationwide agricultural permitting systems. Specific options for such legislation will be explored later in this chapter.