Trump Tells US EPA To Revisit Controversial Water Rule

The rule, which is now on hold while legal action against it plays out, gives the EPA authority over small waterways such as wetlands and streams under the existing Clean Water Act. The flawed WOTUS rule would have expanded federal authority over virtually any water in the nation, including canals, irrigation ditches, vernal pools, and stock ponds.

The rule was signed by President Obama in May of 2015, and went into effect in late August of 2015.

The so-called “Waters of the U.S.” rule, finalized under President Obama, was the subject of a legal challenge filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and more than two dozen other state attorneys general.

President Trump stepped up his attack on federal environmental protections Tuesday, issuing an order directing his administration to begin the long process of rolling back sweeping clean water rules that were enacted by his predecessor. He added that the clean water rule imposes federal regulations “to almost every puddle, to every ditch on a farmer’s land, or anywhere else they decide, right?”

Whether it was a benign clarification or a federal power grab depends on whom you ask. Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006 that sought to clarify the matter only added to the confusion. In that opinion, Scalia said the “Waters of the United States” should apply only to permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water.

Trump’s executive order directs the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA to review the rule and “rescind or revise, or publish for notice and comment proposed rules rescinding or revising”.

The Trump order is expected to “repeal and replace” the rule with something that gives states more authority to decide what gets covered by the Clean Water Act.

Environmentalists and conservationists panned Tuesdays move and said it will lead to the degradation of water quality.

“If there were no EPA, businesses would have the power to pollute the environment at will and we would consequently be facing some serious health issues”, said Dr. John Keller, professor of environmental science at CSN. The rule would have protected those too.

At issue is an old political question with deep roots in science: where does the U.S. government’s authority to regulate water resources give way to that of the individual states?

Those are important distinctions for a state such as Montana where 48 percent of stream miles within native trout historical range are classified as intermittent or ephemeral, said David Brooks, associate director of conservation for Montana Trout Unlimited. That would be “an unmitigated disaster” for fish and wildlife, hunting and fishing, and clean water, Trout Unlimited President and CEO Chris Wood said in a statement.

At the time, the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) said the rule would result in the “imposition of burdensome requirements on agricultural producers”. “Gravity works cheap, and it never takes a day off. He declared the rule, championed by environmental groups to give the EPA broad authority over almost two-thirds of the waterways in the nation, “one of the worst examples of federal regulation” and “a massive power grab”.

Leinbach is also in Washington for National Association of Counties meetings.

The former may be correct philosophically, but, in practice, it takes the combined effort of federal and local environmental regulators to keep our air, ground, and water clean.