Washington Watch: Trump Dumps Clean Water
The new president continued his environmental reign of error last week by telling federal regulators to repeal the critical Clean Water Rule.
The Obama Administration’s 2015 Clean Water Rule restored critical basic safeguards for small streams, rivers, and wetlands nationwide. These are “waters of the United States” which were well-recognized as such and at least somewhat protected for more than a decade, until changing interpretations from the U.S. Supreme Court threw the “waters” definition into confusion beginning in 2001.
It took more than a decade after that for the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Army Corps of Engineers, and two presidential administrations to finish hammering out a restoration and clarification of those key clean water protections. The 2015 Clean Water Rule was supported by more than one million public comments and celebrated by conservationists and fish and wildlife advocates around the nation.
At the same time, however, it was targeted by a massive political and legal attack campaign by interest groups opposing strong water pollution control that safeguards these critical public waters. With the Trump action last week, those forces are now hammering at the door of the administrative rule-making process to once again strip federal protections from the small streams and wetlands that are essential to all clean water in our nation.
“Without the Clean Water Rule’s critical protections, innumerable small streams and wetlands that are essential for drinking water supplies, flood protection, and fish and wildlife habitat will be vulnerable to unregulated pollution, dredging and filling,” said Bob Irvin, president of American Rivers.
In response to the Trump executive order, League of Conservation Voters (LCV) Legislative Representative Madeleine Foote issued the following statement: “This executive order is about one thing: protecting polluters at the expense of our communities and their access to clean drinking water. Time and again, the public has demonstrated their support for the commonsense clean water protections outlined in the Clean Water Rule. The rule protects the drinking water of 1 in 3 people living in this country, including those who voted for President Trump. Dismantling these clean water protections will put safe drinking water at risk without providing businesses the certainty and clarity they need while wasting taxpayer money on new, polluter-friendly regulation. We are equally alarmed by rumors of President Trump’s plan to gut efforts to reduce carbon pollution. We will continue to go to the mat to defend these critical rules and our bedrock environmental laws, and we know that businesses, cities, states, and other countries are determined to build on the all the progress we’ve made. At town halls across the country this week, voters are putting President Trump and polluter allies in Congress on notice. They would be wise to listen to the people and change course.”
Conservation advocates nationwide will fight hard through every legal means possible over the next few years to retain beat back this attack and retain these essential clean water protections.
