16 states challenge water rollback
Trump administration sued over less protective law
A coalition of 16 states led by California and New York sued the Trump administration Friday over a law that eliminated Obamaera protections for wetlands and streams across the United States.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, accuses President Trump and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of illegally exposing waterways to pollution and development by rolling back a key provision of the Clean Water Act.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and New York Attorney General Letitia James called the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which became law April 21, a reckless violation of the Clean Water Act, Supreme Court precedent and the EPA’s own scientific findings.
“The Trump Administration is once again on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of science and the wrong side of the law,” Becerra said. “Clean water is a fundamental right. It is essential to preserving California’s biodiversity and protecting the health of our children and communities.”
The new rule, called a recodification, is essentially a rewrite of the Waters of the United States guidelines, known as WOTUS, which were enacted by President Barack Obama in 2015 in an attempt to clarify ambiguities under the Clean Water Act.
Obama’s rule protected all bodies of water that feed larger rivers and lakes, including small tributaries that sometimes contain no water but might, when full, impact downstream water quality. These ephemeral channels and basins make up the majority of the nation’s waterways.
The Obama rule infuriated businesses and some farmers, who feared having to seek costly permits for projects like
building a barn on land next to a protected pond or slough. Andrew Wheeler, the EPA administrator, called the law an “egregious power grab” that left landowners at the mercy of “distant unelected bureaucrats.”
In response, Trump streamlined the regulations, excluding ponds, ephemeral streams, many wetlands, sloughs unconnected to larger flows and other nonnavigable bodies of water from EPA jurisdiction.
Becerra and James accused the president of endangering the health and safety of Americans by needlessly opening up thousands of miles of streams and wetlands to polluted discharges and development, including pipeline construction.
The lawsuit claims the decision was unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act because it arbitrarily ignored extensive analysis by EPA researchers and dismantled pollution controls under the Clean Water
Act.
“Clearly, allowing water pollution to occur upstream will result in polluted drinking water and water for agriculture, and degraded habitat for fish and wildlife downstream,” said Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. “Streams impacted by this rule provide drinking water sources, protect wildlife refuges and promote sustainable agricultural and even recreational opportunities to millions of residents and visitors to this state.”
Joining Becerra and James were the attorneys general of Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
The District of Columbia, the California State Water Resources Control Board, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the city of New York also joined the suit.