Current Events > Trump removes pollution controls on streams and wetlands

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/climate/trump-environment-water.html

The Trump administration on Thursday will finalize a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and other water bodies, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens.

From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obamas Waters of the United States regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in the coming weeks, is the latest step in the Trump administrations push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling and endangered species protections.

Mr. Trump has called the regulation horrible, destructive and one of the worst examples of federal overreach.

I terminated one of the most ridiculous regulations of all: the last administrations disastrous Waters of the United States rule, he told the American Farm Bureau Federations annual convention in Texas on Sunday, to rousing applause.

That was a rule that basically took your property away from you, added Mr. Trump, whose real estate holdings include more than a dozen golf courses. (Golf course developers were among the key opponents of the Obama rule and key backers of the new one.)

His administration had completed the first step of its demise in September with the rules repeal.

His replacement on Thursday will complete the process, not only rolling back 2015 rules that guaranteed protections under the 1972 Clean Water Act to certain wetlands and streams that run intermittently or run temporarily underground, but also relieves landowners of the need to seek permits that the Environmental Protection Agency had considered on a case-by-case basis before the Obama rule.

It also gives President Trump a major policy achievement to bring to his political base while his impeachment trial continues.

Farmers coalesced against the E.P.A. being able to come onto their land, and hes delivering, said Jessica Flanagain, a Republican strategist in Lincoln, Neb. This is bigger news for agricultural producers than whatever is happening with the sideshow in D.C., she added.

The new water rule will remove federal protections from more than half the nations wetlands, and hundreds of thousands of small waterways. That would for the first time in decades allow landowners and property developers to dump pollutants such as pesticides and fertilizers directly into many of those waterways, and to destroy or fill in wetlands for construction projects.

This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen, said Blan Holman, a lawyer specializing in federal water policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center. This puts drinking water for millions of Americans at risk of contamination from unregulated pollution. This is not just undoing the Obama rule. This is stripping away protections that were put in place in the 70s and 80s that Americans have relied on for their health.

Mr. Holman also said that the new rule exemplifies how the Trump administration has dismissed or marginalized scientific evidence. Last month, a government advisory board of scientists, many of whom were handpicked by the Trump administration, wrote that the proposed water rule neglects established science.
...
The Obama rule protected about 60 percent of the nations waterways, including large bodies of water such as the Chesapeake Bay, Mississippi River and Puget Sound, and smaller headwaters, wetlands, seasonal streams and streams that run temporarily underground. It limited the discharge of pollutants such as fertilizers, pesticides and industrial chemicals into those waters.

The new rule, written by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, will retain federal protections of large bodies of water, as well as larger rivers and streams that flow into them and wetlands that lie adjacent to them. But it removes protections for many other waters, including wetlands that are not adjacent to large bodies of water, some seasonal streams that flow for only a portion of the year, ephemeral streams that only flow after rainstorms, and water that temporarily flows through underground passages.

Legal experts say that Mr. Trumps replacement rule would go further than simply repealing and replacing the 2015 Obama rule it would also eliminate protections to smaller headwaters that have been implemented for decades under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

This is rolling back federal jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act further than its ever been before, said Patrick Parenteau, a professor of environmental law at Vermont Law School. Waters that have been protected for almost 50 years will no longer be protected under the Clean Water Act.

That could open millions of acres of pristine wetlands to pollution or destruction, and allow chemicals and other pollutants to be discharged into smaller headland waters that eventually drain into larger water bodies, experts in water management said. Wetlands play key roles in filtering surface water and protecting against floods, while also providing wildlife habitat.

Ean Thomas Tafoya, a Colorado-based clean water activist with the group GreenLatinos, said the new rule could harm the quality of the water in the Colorado River, which supplies water to 17 western states.

We are a headwater state, he said. This rollback will affect almost every single stream that flows into the Colorado River.

Mr. Tafoya said about 90 percent of the streams that supply the Colorado River run only after rainfall or snowmelt. Under the new Trump water rule, many of those streams will not qualify for federal pollution protection. But Mr. Tafoya said pollutants such as chemical pesticides that end up in those dry stream beds could nonetheless be swept into larger bodies of water when the streams begin running after the spring thaw of mountain snow.

The toxics or poisons that lie dormant will still be there when the streams are reactivated, he said. They will still get into the larger bodies of water.

Government scientists, even those appointed by the Trump administration, say those concerns are justified. The E.P.A.s Scientific Advisory Board, a panel of 41 scientists responsible for evaluating the scientific integrity of the agencys regulations, concluded that the new Trump water rule ignores science by failing to acknowledge watershed systems. They found no scientific justification for excluding c

Not like we or animals drink water or anything.

---

The year keeps getting better and better.

---

Why is this dude such a blatant villain tho

---

What a disgrace.

---

AlCalavicci posted...

Why is this dude such a blatant villain tho

because that's what conservatives want

they support this
---

UnfairRepresent posted...

because that's what conservatives want

they support this

That's right.
---

Who cares about the environment when short term profits can be made

---

eh, its an obama rule, he's gotta roll that back...

---

Yeah

Who needs water...

---

Strider102 posted...

Not like we or animals drink water or anything.

Must be tough to be a human.

---

Now he's worried about people keeping their land but he was about to take land for his damn wall.

---

KStateKing17 posted...

Now he's worried about people keeping their land but he was about to take land for his damn wall.

Oh hes still doing that

---

Trump should be dumped in a wetland, hundreds of miles from any civilization. That would be pollution I could agree with.
---

shockthemonkey posted...

When people say voting doesnt matter, the president doesnt matter, etc. you can always remind them what such a shitty ass administration is capable of

It's like you're intentionally overlooking the economic progress Trump has created.
---

UnfairRepresent posted...

because that's what conservatives want

they support this

yes they do

remember than when they shitpost on here or verbal diarrhea IRL
---

Literally wanting to destroy the planet. What the fuck is wrong with people like him?

---

uuuuuuugggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Antifar posted...

That was a rule that basically took your property away from you, added Mr. Trump, whose real estate holdings include more than a dozen golf courses. (Golf course developers were among the key opponents of the Obama rule and key backers of the new one.)

really makes ya think

---

Private property should not cease being so because there's a large puddle on it for several months.

How can something so evil not get impeached?

---

DuranOfForcena posted...

drainin' the swamp

Apparently you're actually allowed to do that now.