Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 9/19/19

Many of Trump's policies have hit farmers' bottom lines, from the turbulent trade war to an immigration crackdown to a controversial approach to ethanol. The rare bright spot has been a one-time foe: the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency's deregulatory agenda has delivered for farmers, even if those rollbacks don't result in immediate returns for agriculture, write Catherine and Pro Energy's Annie Snider.

The latest development came this month when the agency repealed the Obama administration's Waters of the U.S. rule — welcome news for the farm lobby, which had strongly opposed the regulation. The reversal is part of a larger bid to rein in what streams and wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act.

WOTUS follows a number of other ag-friendly actions from the EPA, such as the agency's call to keep two controversial pesticides on the market that some research has linked to dangerous health conditions. The agency also tried to revise rules intended to protect farm workers from exposure to pesticides, but Congress ultimately blocked that effort.

The administration hasn't been able to secure breakthroughs on other fronts important to agriculture. For example, farmers often cite a chronic labor shortage as their top concern, but reworking the H-2A foreign guest-worker program hasn't made it to the top of the White House's immigration agenda.