Last week, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its repeal of the Clean Water Rule, a keystone of the Obama Administration’s legacy of environmental protection.
The rule represented a major step in effective protection of waters including headwater streams and wetlands, which are especially critical to filtering pollutants and providing essential habitat for wildlife and fisheries. Retreat back to the rules in place in 1986 — which would be the result of the Trump Administration action — would risk massive destruction of American wetlands.
League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Deputy Legislative Director Madeleine Foote said, “If somehow there was any lingering doubt that the Trump administration only cares about lining the pockets of corporate polluters, then this irresponsible and dangerous rollback of drinking water protections for one in three people should eviscerate remaining suspicion. This immoral decision, on top of the multitude of other current and planned rulemakings to gut the Clean Water Act, will ensure that this critical law and the safeguards it provides will be nothing but an empty shell by the time this administration is done.”
LCV and other environmental advocacy groups, as well as a coalition of pro-environment states and local governments, will continue to fight this rule’s repeal.
