The EPA removes federal protections for most of the country's wetlands
From NPR
August 29, 2023
The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country's wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The EPA and Department of the Army announced a final rule amending the definition of protected "waters of the United States" in light of the decision in Sackett v. EPA in May, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and the agency's power to regulate waterways and wetlands.
"While I am disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision in the Sackett case, EPA and Army have an obligation to apply this decision alongside our state co-regulators, Tribes, and partners," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
A 2006 Supreme Court decision determined that wetlands would be protected if they had a "significant nexus" to major waterways. This year's court decision undid that standard. The EPA's new rule "removes the significant nexus test from consideration when identifying tributaries and other waters as federally protected," the agency said.
In May, Justice Samuel Alito said the navigable U.S. waters regulated by the EPA under the Clean Water Act do not include many previously regulated wetlands. Writing the court's decision, he said the law includes only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and wetlands with a "continuous surface connection to those bodies."
The EPA said the rule will take effect immediately. "The agencies are issuing this amendment to the 2023 rule expeditiously — three months after the Supreme Court decision — to provide clarity and a path forward consistent with the ruling," the agency said.
As a result of the rule change, protections for many waterways and wetlands will now fall to states.
Environmental groups said the new rule underscores the problems of the Supreme Court decision.
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Paines Prarie Preserve State Park, Gainesville FL
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From the AP yesterday comes this:
States at the forefront of fights over wetlands protections after justices slash federal rules
Story by By JOHN FLESHER and MICHAEL PHILLIS
Amonth after the U.S. Supreme Court severely restricted the federal government's power to oversee wetlands, the Republican-dominated North Carolina legislature handed state agencies an order: Don't give the ecologically crucial waters any more protection than newly weakened federal rules provide.
It might seem ironic that Republicans who often complain about the federal government would tether their state's policy to one crafted in Washington, D.C. But this time, doing so meant slashing regulation and aligning themselves with builders, agriculture and other industries that have long sought weaker wetland safeguards.
For decades, federal court battles have pitted environmentalists who want the Clean Water Act to protect more wetlands against industries seeking regulatory rollbacks. The high court's May 25 decision favoring Idaho landowners Michael and Chantell Sackett curtailed powers of the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to limit wetlands destruction.
North Carolina offers an early example.
The state, with its flat, sandy coastal plain rich in wetlands, began regulating ones isolated from larger surface waterways about 20 years ago after a previous court decision limited federal authority.
Urged by development interests in the steadily growing region, legislators voted in June to disallow state protection standards exceeding those of the EPA and Army Corps, overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.
The move stripped protections from more than half the wetlands in the flood-prone state hammered by hurricanes in the past decade, said Grady McCallie, policy director for the North Carolina Conservation Network.
“We are going to see a lot of devastation,” said Gisler of the Southern Environmental Law Center. “People who bought new homes, moving to North Carolina to embrace the coastal lifestyle, at some point in the next few years are likely to see their homes flooded.”
But more is at stake, said Curtis Richardson, director of the Duke University Wetland Center and a professor of resource ecology. Thousands of the state's wetlands — oval depressions known as Carolina bays, pocosin bogs with sandy peat soil and woodsy shrubs — are formed by rainfall or groundwater and have no connection to surface waters. And Richardson said the Supreme Court ruling — and now the new state requirement not to exceed federal standards — leaves them vulnerable.
“You cannot protect every wetland. Not every wetland is sacrosanct," he said. “What we want to do is preserve those with the most functional value on the landscape for biodiversity, water quality and other services.”
Roughly half of U.S. states rely on federal regulations to protect their wetlands, according to a May analysis by the Environmental Law Institute. That's where the Sackett ruling will have the greatest impact — unless state or local leaders set tougher rules than federal ones.
Colorado officials, for example, quickly issued an interim policy that requires anyone damaging a wetland no longer protected under federal law to notify the state environmental agency.
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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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