The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country’s wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country’s wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The EPA and Department of the Army announced a final rule amending the definition of protected “waters of the United States” in light of the decision in Sackett v. EPA in May, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and the agency’s power to regulate waterways and wetlands.
Developers and environmental groups have for decades argued about the scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act in protecting waterways and wetlands.
The EPA’s new rule “removes the significant nexus test from consideration when identifying tributaries and other waters as federally protected,” the agency said.
Writing the court’s decision, he said the law includes only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and wetlands with a “continuous surface connection to those bodies.”
Courtney Briggs, chair of the Waters Advocacy Coalition, said federal agencies “have chosen to ignore” the limits of their jurisdictional reach.
“This revised rule does not adequately comply with Supreme Court precedent and with the limits on regulatory jurisdiction set forth in the Clean Water Act,” she said in a statement.
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