Trump administration offers major rollback of water rules

WASHINGTON — Cabinet chiefs and GOP lawmakers celebrated alongside farm and business leaders Tuesday as the Trump administration made good on one of its biggest promised environmental rollbacks, proposing to lift federal protections for thousands of waterways and wetlands nationwide.

Environmental groups called the proposed overhaul a grave assault on the aims of the 1972 Clean Water Act, the foundational U.S. water protection law. Administration supporters praised President Donald Trump for knocking back what they said was federal overreach.

Environmental groups said the Trump administration proposal would have a sweeping impact on how the country safeguards the nation’s waterways, scaling back not just a 2015 Obama administration interpretation of federal jurisdiction but also how federal agencies enforce the Clean Water Act.

The Trump administration would withdraw federal protections for wetlands nationally unless they are connected to another federally protected water- way, and generally for streams, creeks, washes, ditches and ponds that exist only during and immediately after a rain.

Environmental groups say the kind of isolated wetlands, rain-fed streams and often dry washes that would lose federal protections also help buffer communities from the worsening impact of drought, floods and hurricanes under climate change.

The rules now go up for public comment, ahead of any final adoption by the Trump administration. Environmental groups promise legal challenges.