(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says he’s met with Iowa’s attorney general to discuss legal challenges to some federal regulations relating to wetlands. “In the conservation space, we’re having some real problems in getting with some of our projects through permitting with the Army Corps of Engineers,” Naig says. “You can be sure that we’re going to be looking at how Waters of the U.S. is defined and the Clean Water Act as it related to trying to go out and do conservation work.”

Naig says the lawsuit would follow the U-S Supreme Court’s recent decision that sharply curtails the authority federal agencies have to interpret the laws they administer. “What that sort of says is here congress has been outsourcing a lot of the detail and some of the specifics to agencies and…congress should do their job give specific direction and then perform oversight over agencies,” Naig says.

Naig suggests a prime target for litigation would be federal rules for wetland restoration projects that require work in connected streams. “Nitrate reducing wetlands and whether or not we need to do stream mitigation adds to the costs of these projects,” Naig says. “…We would argue the overall environmental and ecological impact, the positive impact to that stream segment overwhelms the need to go mitigate.”

Naig made his comments during a recent appearance on Iowa Press on Iowa P-B-S.