Rule repeal threatens clean water.
At first glance, complaints surrounding the Trump administration’s rollback of an Obama-era rule protecting small streams and wetlands sound like “the sky is falling” hyperbole we’ve come to expect from environmental groups.
After all, hasn’t our nation made great strides cleaning up water pollution since it passed the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972, four decades before the Obama administration enacted the rule in 2015?
The rule, also known as Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), was put in place to clarify which wetlands and small waterways get protected under the Clean Water Act.
The rule made it clear that the Environmental Protection Agency has authority to regulate pollution on smaller streams and wetlands, encompassing more than half the nation’s waterways.
More than two dozen business groups and states have challenged it in court.
“This is the first step in the two-step process to redefine ‘Waters of the U.S.’ and we are committed to moving through this re-evaluation to quickly provide regulatory certainty, in a way that is thoughtful, transparent and collaborative with other agencies and the public,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said last week.
One reason the Obama administration created the 2015 rule was to answer complaints from industry and environmentalists that existing regulations dating from 1986 were too confusing to follow, notes Jon Devine, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
More than 117 million Americans get drinking water from public systems that draw supply from headwater, seasonal or rain-dependent streams covered under the rule, Devine noted.
Everyone who values clean water should be concerned that Pruitt and Donald Trump’s EPA will attempt to further roll back Clean Water Act protections in “part two” of the process.