{"id":26302,"date":"2020-01-31T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T04:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=26302"},"modified":"2020-01-30T19:36:22","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T23:36:22","slug":"trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration Hands Over Clean Water Standards to Agrichemical, Construction, and Mining Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, January 31, 2020)\u00a0In the latest of a long litany of destructive decisions by the Trump administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced on January 23 the establishment of a new weaker federal rule<\/a> on protection of U.S. waterways, which replaces the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule that the agency repealed in September 2019. In an obeisant gesture to industrial interests \u2014 the agrichemical, construction, and mining sectors \u2014 Mr. Wheeler chose to announce the replacement rule, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule<\/a>, at a Las Vegas National Association of Home Builders International Builders\u2019 Show. This decision will significantly weaken protections by drastically reducing the number of U.S. waterways and acreage of wetlands protected, and by jettisoning proscriptions on activities that threaten waterways from a variety of pollution harms.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u2019s WOTUS, aka Clean Water Rule<\/a>, has provided protections from pesticide runoff and other pollutants to millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams. According to Administrator Wheeler<\/a>, \u201c\u2018All states have their own protections for waters within their borders, and many regulate more broadly than the federal government. . . . Our new rule recognizes this relationship and strikes the proper balance between Washington, D.C. and the states. And it clearly details which waters are subject to federal control under the Clean Water Act and, importantly, which waters fall solely under the states’ jurisdiction.\u2019\u201d Whereas, the Obama-era rule protected approximately 60% of U.S. waterways \u2014 protecting drinking water sources for roughly one-third of the nation \u2014 the new rule is expected to reduce dramatically the number of waterways protected.<\/p>\n

The WOTUS rule was created<\/a> to provide greater protections from pollution, and to \u201cbring clarity to decades of political and legal debate over which waters should qualify.\u201d The rule included many smaller waterways and wetlands that function as recharge areas or tributaries to larger water bodies. There was, of course, blowback from business interests, which generally considered it an act of federal overreach; indeed, 27 states sued to block the rule. Those who opposed that rule complained largely about the scope, in that it applied to those smaller waterways and wetlands. The American Farm Bureau Federation and other agricultural groups were particularly strident in their objections. Common sentiment was captured by a comment from a representative of the federation<\/a>: \u201cWhen you take private property rights from a man who\u2019s worked all his life, that is very intrusive to him and it\u2019s something he just can\u2019t stand for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics of the 2015 WOTUS rule also objected to provisions that limited agricultural and industrial \u201cfreedom to pollute.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> described some features of WOTUS<\/a>: \u201cUnder the Obama rule, farmers using land near streams and wetlands were restricted from doing certain kinds of plowing and planting certain crops, and would have been required to apply for permits from the Environmental Protection Agency in order to use chemical pesticides and fertilizers that could have run off into those water bodies.\u201d The new Navigable Waters Protection Rule will remove those requirements, as well.<\/p>\n

The new rule will exempt<\/a> \u201cephemeral\u201d waterways \u2014 those that may be vernal or seasonal, or form after significant rainfall \u2014 as well as farm water ponds, underground water passages, groundwater, waste treatment systems, and prior converted croplands, exposing them to greater degrees of fouling and the \u201cdownstream\u201d impacts of that. The new rule identifies four categories to which it extends federal protections: large navigable waters (e.g., the Mississippi River), lakes and ponds, tributaries, and major wetlands. When the new rule goes into effect in March, an immediate impact will be that polluters will not need to secure permits to dump potentially harmful substances (think agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, fossil fuel-based products, chemicals, industrial waste) into many streams and wetlands.<\/p>\n

Objection to the rollback and new rule is rife. In 2019, 14 states sued EPA<\/a>, challenging that the proposed WOTUS rollback would ignore law and science, and remove from some waterways basic protections for which the 1972 Clean Water Act was created. In December 2019, the EPA Science Advisory Board\u2019s members (nearly two-thirds of whom were appointed by Trump) posted an online letter<\/a> saying that the revised definition (of which waterways \u201ccount\u201d for federal protection) \u201cdecreases protection for our Nation’s waters and does not support the objective of restoring and maintaining \u2018the chemical, physical and biological integrity\u2019 of these waters.\u201d The Science Advisory Board, which is tasked with evaluating the scientific integrity of the agency\u2019s regulations, also said the new rule<\/a> \u201cneglects established science\u201d by \u201cfailing to acknowledge watershed systems\u201d; the board also found \u201cno scientific justification\u201d for the exemption of particular waterways from protection.<\/p>\n

In addition to its critique of the new waterways rule, in separate letters, the board denounced two other initiatives<\/a> of the Trump administration\u2019s EPA: its plan to roll back Obama-era rules on tailpipe emissions<\/a>, and its plan to constrain the use of some scientific data in promulgating regulation \u2014 which development Beyond Pesticides has covered<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The board has also criticized that development<\/a> \u2014 to limit the science EPA would use in developing rules related to public health by requiring that scientists disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, before EPA would consider a study\u2019s conclusions. Critics note that such a rule would hamper enactment of any new regulations related to clean water (and air) because many research studies that would inform such rules necessarily rely on personal health data gathered under confidentiality agreements. The board warned that<\/a> this \u201cmay not add transparency, and even may make some kinds of research more difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Gluckenheimer, PhD, who was appointed to the EPA Science Advisory Board in 2019, has said<\/a> that the new rule is \u201cbased upon speculation about what the courts will decide, rather than really having much scientific substance,\u201d and that it ignores \u201cthe established science showing that even those wetlands and underground streams have a significant impact on the health of larger bodies.\u201d Response to the board\u2019s letter from the Natural Resources Defense Council\u2019s (NRDC\u2019s) Jon Devine, an expert in water policy, was unvarnished<\/a>: \u201cThey are saying that the Trump proposal is entirely untethered from the scientific evidence, and that the scientific record for the rule that the administration is trying to replace remains unrefuted and very solid. And any self-respecting scientist is going to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former EPA Administrator and now president and CEO of NRDC Gina McCarthy has been vociferous in her critique<\/a> of the rollback and new rule: \u201c\u2018So much for the \u201ccrystal clear\u201d water President Trump promised. You don’t make America great by polluting our drinking water supplies, making our beaches unfit for swimming, and increasing flood risk. This effort neglects established science and poses substantial new risks to people’s health and the environment. We will do all we can to fight this attack on clean water. We will not let it stand.\u2019\u201dJanette Brimmer of Earthjustice said<\/a> in a statement that under the new rule, \u201cfew protections will remain to stop polluters from dumping toxic byproducts into our waters.\u201d Collin O\u2019Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said<\/a>, \u201cThis is not just undoing the clean water rule promulgated by the Obama administration. This is going back to the lowest level of protection we\u2019ve seen in the last 50 years. This is a staggering rollback.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Washington Post <\/em>reports<\/a>, \u201cThe independent assessments raise questions about the basis for the administration\u2019s push to unspool regulations enacted under President Barack Obama.\u201d The newspaper also cites a comment made by Steven Hamburg, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who was a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board until September 2019: \u201cIt really calls into question to what degree these suggested changes are fact-based as opposed to politically motivated.\u201d Critics further note that this decision \u2014 among the nearly 100 other rollbacks of environmental rules under the Trump administration\u00a0 \u2014 may be challenging to undo under a future administration because of the rightward ideological shift in the composition of the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Beyond Pesticides advocates for organic and regenerative land management systems<\/a> that protect waterways, conserve water, create less surface runoff, and reduce the need for nutrient input. Advancement of that goal requires the strong voices of the public \u2014 particularly in the current political zeitgeist and given the trajectory of recent EPA decision making. Please call and write to elected officials and support NGOs (non-governmental organizations, such as Beyond Pesticides<\/a>) that are working to protect waterways from pollution, and thus, human and environmental health.<\/p>\n

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sources: https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/01\/23\/798809951\/trump-administration-is-rolling-back-obama-era-protections-for-smaller-waterways<\/a> and https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-solutions\/epas-scientific-advisers-warn-its-regulatory-rollbacks-clash-with-established-science\/2019\/12\/31\/a1994f5a-227b-11ea-a153-dce4b94e4249_story.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2020)\u00a0In the latest of a long litany of destructive decisions by the Trump administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced on January 23 the establishment of a new weaker federal rule on protection of U.S. waterways, which replaces the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule that the agency repealed in September 2019. In an obeisant gesture to industrial interests \u2014 the agrichemical, construction, and mining sectors \u2014 Mr. Wheeler chose to announce the replacement rule, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, at a Las Vegas National Association of Home Builders International Builders\u2019 Show. This decision will significantly weaken protections by drastically reducing the number of U.S. waterways and acreage of wetlands protected, and by jettisoning proscriptions on activities that threaten waterways from a variety of pollution harms. President Obama\u2019s WOTUS, aka Clean Water Rule, has provided protections from pesticide runoff and other pollutants to millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams. According to Administrator Wheeler, \u201c\u2018All states have their own protections for waters within their borders, and many regulate more broadly than the federal government. . . . Our new rule recognizes this relationship and strikes the proper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[354,1,12,324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-protection-agency-epa","category-uncategorized","category-water","category-water-regulation"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Administration Hands Over Clean Water Standards to Agrichemical, Construction, and Mining Industry - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Administration Hands Over Clean Water Standards to Agrichemical, Construction, and Mining Industry - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Beyond Pesticides, January 31, 2020)\u00a0In the latest of a long litany of destructive decisions by the Trump administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced on January 23 the establishment of a new weaker federal rule on protection of U.S. waterways, which replaces the 2015 Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule that the agency repealed in September 2019. In an obeisant gesture to industrial interests \u2014 the agrichemical, construction, and mining sectors \u2014 Mr. Wheeler chose to announce the replacement rule, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, at a Las Vegas National Association of Home Builders International Builders\u2019 Show. This decision will significantly weaken protections by drastically reducing the number of U.S. waterways and acreage of wetlands protected, and by jettisoning proscriptions on activities that threaten waterways from a variety of pollution harms. President Obama\u2019s WOTUS, aka Clean Water Rule, has provided protections from pesticide runoff and other pollutants to millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams. According to Administrator Wheeler, \u201c\u2018All states have their own protections for waters within their borders, and many regulate more broadly than the federal government. . . . 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In an obeisant gesture to industrial interests \u2014 the agrichemical, construction, and mining sectors \u2014 Mr. Wheeler chose to announce the replacement rule, the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, at a Las Vegas National Association of Home Builders International Builders\u2019 Show. This decision will significantly weaken protections by drastically reducing the number of U.S. waterways and acreage of wetlands protected, and by jettisoning proscriptions on activities that threaten waterways from a variety of pollution harms. President Obama\u2019s WOTUS, aka Clean Water Rule, has provided protections from pesticide runoff and other pollutants to millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams. According to Administrator Wheeler, \u201c\u2018All states have their own protections for waters within their borders, and many regulate more broadly than the federal government. . . . Our new rule recognizes this relationship and strikes the proper […]","og_url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/","og_site_name":"Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beyondpesticides","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beyondpesticides\/","article_published_time":"2020-01-31T04:01:17+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Water_pollution_in_the_Wairarapa.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Beyond Pesticides","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ByondPesticides","twitter_site":"@ByondPesticides","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Beyond Pesticides","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/"},"author":{"name":"Beyond Pesticides","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/#\/schema\/person\/1b5c0a0981b549cc5b628770073031f4"},"headline":"Trump Administration Hands Over Clean Water Standards to Agrichemical, Construction, and Mining Industry","datePublished":"2020-01-31T04:01:17+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/"},"wordCount":1459,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Water_pollution_in_the_Wairarapa.jpg","articleSection":{"0":"Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)","2":"Water","3":"Water Regulation"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/","url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2020\/01\/trump-administration-hands-over-clean-water-standards-to-agrichemical-construction-and-mining-industry\/","name":"Trump Administration Hands Over Clean Water Standards to Agrichemical, Construction, and Mining Industry - 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