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S. 795 119th Congress Senate

Farmers Freedom Act of 2025

Official title: A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to exclude prior converted cropland from the definition of "navigable waters", and for other purposes.

Introduced: February 27, 2025 Introduced by: Mike Rounds Republican · South Dakota See on congress.gov
Environmental Protection
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 Everywhere this bill has been 2 steps
Introduced
In committee
Reported out
Passed House
Passed Senate
To President
Became law
Feb 27, 2025
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Feb 27, 2025
Introduced in Senate
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What's happening now February 27, 2025

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

 Plain-English summary Congressional Research Service

Farmers Freedom Act of 2025

This bill excludes certain prior converted cropland from permit requirements under the Clean Water Act, including Section 404 permits for discharges of dredged materials into waters of the United States (WOTUS). The exclusion applies to areas that were converted to cropland prior to December 23, 1985. However, the bill does not exclude an area that has reverted to wetlands and has not been used for agricultural purposes in five years.

In recent years, there has not been regulatory consistency about which cropland, such as cropland that has reverted to wetlands, is protected under the scope of the act as WOTUS. In 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the Navigable Waters Protection Rule that, among other provisions, defined prior converted cropland in order to specify which cropland is excluded from the scope of the act. However, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona vacated the rule in Pascua Yaqui Tribe v. EPA. In 2023, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers issued another rule that excluded prior converted cropland from the scope of the act, but they defined the exclusion more narrowly than the exclusion in the 2020 rule. 

Similar to the 2020 rule, this bill broadens the exclusion. The bill determines the scope of the exclusion by defining the term prior converted cropland in statute. 

 Bill text 1 version

Source documents hosted by congress.gov.

 Committees of jurisdiction 1
 Lobbying activity 5

Registered lobbyists who named this bill in their disclosure filings. Source: federal Lobbying Disclosure Act filings.

Bodies those filers lobbied

A filing lists the bills it worked on and the parts of government it contacted in separate sections, so these are the bodies those filers named anywhere in the filing, not a per-bill breakdown.

 Cosponsors 6
All 6 Republican 6
R
Ernst, Joni
Iowa · Apr 11, 2025
 R
Kennedy, John
Louisiana · Apr 11, 2025
 R
Barrasso, John
Wyoming · Feb 27, 2025
 R
Hoeven, John
North Dakota · Feb 27, 2025
 R
Marshall, Roger
Kansas · Feb 27, 2025
 R
Thune, John
South Dakota · Feb 27, 2025
Cite this page click to expand
APA
U.S. Congress. (2026). S. 795: Farmers Freedom Act of 2025. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-795/
MLA
"S. 795: Farmers Freedom Act of 2025." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-795/.
Bluebook (legal)
S. 795, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-795/.
Markdown link
[S. 795: Farmers Freedom Act of 2025](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-S-795/)
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