EPA seeks elimination of waterway oversight
The Trump administration Tuesday took a major legal step toward repealing an Obamaera regulation designed to limit pollution in about 60 percent of the nation’s bodies of water.
The rule, known as Waters of the United States, had extended existing federal protections of large bodies of water, such as the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound, to smaller bodies that flow into them, such as rivers, small waterways and wetlands. The rule has been hailed by environmentalists, but farmers, ranchers and real estate developers oppose it as an infringement on their property rights.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February directing Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to begin the legal process for rolling back the water rule, calling it “one of the worst examples of federal regulation.”
On Tuesday, Pruitt released a 42-page proposal to rescind the rule. Publication of the plan is the first step in a lengthy legal process that the Trump administration must undertake to eventually enact a new regulation, one that is expected to have far fewer restrictions and pollution protections.
The proposed rollback of the Obama rule will have little immediate practical effect: A federal court had already delayed implementation of the regulation until legal questions are resolved.
Pruitt, meanwhile, got an earful from lawmakers of both parties Tuesday when he appeared on Capitol Hill.
Both Republican and Democratic members of a Senate Appropriations Committee told Pruitt that the administration’s proposed 31 percent cut to EPA isn’t going to happen, and that shuttering key programs and laying off thousands of employees conflicts with the Trump administration’s stated goals about safeguarding the nation’s air and water.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, noted that while she supports Pruitt’s approach of focusing on the EPA’s central responsibilities while steering away from the climate policies of the Obama administration, the current budget proposal is “in direct contrast” to such an approach.
Democrats were even more blunt.
“The budget request before us today is downright offensive,” Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. “These cuts aren’t an intent to rein in spending, they are an intentional step to undermine science and ignore environmental and public health realities.”
The Trump administration would reduce EPA’s funding by $2.4 billion annually, a larger percentage cut than at any other federal agency. Slated for elimination are efforts aimed at restoring the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound.