Biden Administration Seeks to Rewrite Trump Clean Water Rule

Washington Post writer Dino Grandoni reported this week that, “The Biden administration is set to toss out President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the number of streams, marshes and other wetlands that fall under federal protection, kicking off a legal and regulatory scuffle over the fate of wetlands and waterways around the country, from the arid West to the swampy South.

“With the announcement, the Biden administration is wading into a decades-long battle over how far federal officials can go to stop contaminants from entering small streams and other wetlands.”

The Post article noted that, “In 2015, the Obama administration expanded federal authority to stop or curtail development that could harm a variety of wetlands, streams and ditches that feed into larger bodies of water protected under the Clean Water Act.

The Times article indicated that, “Environmental groups and Democrats in Congress praised the announcement and pressed the administration to work quickly to unravel the Trump policy. ‘Every day the ‘Dirty Water’ rule remains in effect, it causes irreparable harm to our health, to our environment, and to our economies,’ Representative Peter DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said in a statement.

“However, some legal experts said that by moving to repeal Mr. Trump’s measure and start over again — rather than building on the previous rule — the Biden administration might only prolong the back and forth that has gone on for years. ‘It could perpetuate this place we are in, in which each administration throws out what the last administration does, and that is not good for anyone who is interested in this issue,’ said Kevin Minoli who served as a lawyer at the Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations.”

DTN writer Todd Neeley reported this week that, “The EPA said a new regulatory effort would be guided by a number of considerations.

“That includes protecting water resources and communities consistent with the Clean Water Act, considering the latest science and the effects of climate change on waters, and emphasizing a rule with a ‘practical-implementation approach’ for states and tribes.

“The EPA said the new rule would reflect the ‘experience of and input received from landowners, the agricultural community that fuels and feeds the world, states, tribes, local governments, community organizations, environmental groups, and disadvantaged communities with environmental justice concerns.'”

And Annie Snider reported this week at Politico that, “The issue of which streams and wetlands are subject to federal regulation has been the source of intense debate virtually since the Clean Water Act was passed, and has been a legal and political quagmire for the past decade and a half after the Supreme Court issued a pair of muddled opinions that created enormous confusion on the ground.

“Over the past two presidential administrations, the country has ping-ponged back and forth among three different regulatory definitions, sometimes with different rules in effect in different parts of the country.”

The Politico article reminded readers that, “Regan, who worked closely with farmers and ranchers in his previous job as head of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, won broad support from agricultural groups when Biden tapped him to helm EPA.”