US EPA Finalizes Rollback of Clean Water Rules

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published the final rule for its rollback of key parts of the Clean Water Rule.

This move is part of a multi-rule rollback effort by the Trump administration to ease regulations for polluters. According to a statement released by Earthjustice, repealing the Clean Water Rule without any valid scientific or legal support moves this country away from a commonsense safeguard that helps state and federal agencies protect our rivers, streams, and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. These rollbacks threaten drinking water sources for 117 million people in the United States.

“Trump’s EPA is taking advantage of a pandemic to covertly gut water safeguards,” says Earthjustice attorney Janette Brimmer. “Under the cover of COVID-19, the Trump administration is giving extractive and polluting industries the power to dig up and destroy wetlands and to dump waste in streams, lakes, and wetlands all over the country. We will see them in court.”

These rollbacks come on the heels of the administration’s recent announcement that EPA should not regulate mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants, which would have serious impacts on communities across the country and make it harder for EPA to improve air pollution rules.

Read more about what the Trump administration is doing on the Earthjustice website.

Prepared by Earthjustice.