A proposal backed by environmentalists to change one word in the Clean Water Act and subject tens of millions more acres of land to new federal oversight has ranchers and farmers fuming. "It's a huge grab for more federal intervention in our lives, and we don't need that," says Montana cattle rancher Randy Smith says. Jim Murphy, a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation, says the law must be revised to protect not only the water on the lands at issue but the waters they flow into. He says the waters and wetlands now outside the scope of the law "provide incredible functions to the health of all watersheds" and are valuable as aquatic habitats, sources of drinking water and flood prevention.

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