Bill to end wetlands protections shelved
A bill to roll back protections on more than 430,000 acres of wetlands in Tennessee has been effectively defeated, with a senate committee voting to send the measure to a legislative study session over the summer.
The bill by Collierville Republican Rep. Kevin Vaughan would have eliminated rules that require developers and landowners to get state approval and pay mitigation fees before building on, or otherwise disturbing, wetlands. The committee vote came Wednesday.
Most of the wetlands that would have been affected by the measure lie in the path of a building boom in West Tennessee surrounding BlueOval City, Ford Motor Co.’s $5.6 billion electric truck plant set to open in 2025.
Defeating the bill was among the top priorities of state environmental groups, who Wednesday expressed relief the measure has been tabled.
The bill “has real consequences that would negatively impact Tennessee’s natural heritage and our environmental resiliency,” said Grace Stranch, CEO of the Harpeth Conservancy. “We applaud the Senate for sending the bill to summer study to provide time for a more in-depth review. We look forward to working on solutions with all the stakeholders.”
Before the Senate committee’s vote to shelve the bill for the year, Vaughan urged colleagues to pass it, saying the measure would have no effect on “real wetlands.”
For weeks, Vaughan has voiced criticism of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, saying state regulators have overzealously classified small, waterlogged areas created by tractors or livestock as wetlands — and then subjected developers and landowners to the same costly and time-consuming rules that are required for larger natural areas.
Vaughan’s bill would have allowed construction on large areas of wetlands that have no obvious surface connection to a lake or river without going through that process, which includes applying for a state permit, hiring lawyers and hydrologists and monthslong delays before construction can begin — and then only if the state approves the permit.
“This bill would not affect the permitting of real wetlands,” Vaughan told members of the House Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee, who first heard the bill Wednesday morning before the Senate committee voted to table it in the afternoon.
Vaughan, who operates a firm in West Tennessee that represents developers, also pushed back against the notion he stood to gain personally from loosening regulations. Instead, he said, it would probably hurt him financially.
The Lookout last month detailed development projects Vaughan has worked on that have butted up against Tennessee’s wetlands regulations. Vaughan has represented projects that have either required wetland mitigation or been cited with violations for failing to obtain proper permits before filling in wetlands. The Lookout also detailed political contributions to lawmakers, including Vaughan, from a West Tennessee builders political action committee, which first launched in 2022 but rapidly grew to become one of the largest political spenders in the months leading up to the legislative session.
“What this will do, I’m hopeful, is it will decrease my personal fee basis, because the harder a project is to do, the more money I make, because I am a consultant. It’s not my land,” Vaughan said. “And so I want that in the record. The fact that there were insinuations I am double-dealing or trying to gain some advantages from this legislation couldn’t be anything further from the truth.”
TDEC officials have repeatedly expressed reservations about the bill, noting that building on wetlands could lead to greater flooding in the state, increasing burdens on Tennessee taxpayers.
On Wednesday, Sen. Brent Taylor, R-Memphis, the bill’s co-sponsor, also took aim at state enviroment officials for refusing to work with the bill’s sponsors on a compromise.
“TDEC has been dragging their feet and … is getting exactly what they wanted,” Taylor said as lawmakers signaled they were prepared to take a vote to table the bill for the year.
The debate over the bill this year follows a May decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to narrow federal protections of wetlands, leaving it up to states to set their own rules.
The court concluded that only wetlands that have an obvious surface connection to rivers, lakes and oceans fall under federal oversight and are subject to Clean Water Act regulations. The majority of Tennessee’s wetlands — 432,850 out of the state’s 787,000 acres of wetlands — do not have a surface connection to a water source, according to the state Department of Environment and Conservation. Vaughan’s bill sought to remove state oversight of the so-called “isolated wetlands.”
Environment experts have said that wetlands are rarely isolated, because they belong to larger ecosystems that work collectively to absorb water that prevents flooding, serve as a defense against drought and provide habitat for fish and wildlife. In West Tennessee, wetlands also replenish the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the source of drinking water for the region, and one that also sustains local farms.