President Donald Trump ’s administration is announcing plans to undo an Obama-era policy that expanded federal oversight of the country’s waterways, while leaving further changes to clean-water rules up to a later overhaul.
The decision, expected to be announced by the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday afternoon, is the latest lurch toward new clean-water regulations after almost two decades of uncertainty about federal authority over the country’s bays, rivers and streams, especially smaller seasonal tributaries and even ditches that flow into those larger waterways.
The Obama administration had expanded federal oversight upstream, it said, to better protect water quality from industrial runoff and pollution. The Trump administration has repeatedly promised a rollback it says would simplify rules and correct federal overreach.
The rule to be finalized Thursday would rescind the policy issued by the Obama administration in 2015.
The biggest immediate impact would likely be a reset of what has become divided rules for different parts of the country, after several court fights over the 2015 rule produced varying judicial decisions nationwide. However, the new Trump administration rule is likely to spark its own series court fights, too.
The Trump administration has also promised its own redefinition of federal waterways, intending to help farmers and other businesses who have complained the Obama-era changes made it too confusing and costly to determine when they might encroach on federal authority.
Mr. Trump has long promised to roll back environmental regulations he considers too restrictive. But just 14 months remain before Mr. Trump stands for reelection, raising the urgency for the administration to start finalizing and defending its top priorities for deregulation.
Office of Management and Budget acting Director Russ Vought said the move is part of the administration’s “effort to remove regulations that put absurd government standards on the American people.”
“For years, this rule has been used by government agencies to punish farmers and private land owners with out-of-control fines and imprisonment for simply working to protect or better their property,” he said in a statement.
In recent weeks the administration has been strongly considering isolating a challenge to California authority from the rest of its new vehicle-efficiency rules. In June, EPA finalized climate rules for power plants without revising its standards for certain reviews of those plants—changes it once considered a linchpin of the policy but then promised would have to come later.
Conflict over federal waters traces back to two Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006, that called into question whether and to what extent 60% of U.S. waterways, especially streams and wetlands, should fall under federal jurisdiction. The Obama revisions gave the federal government oversight of some ditches and shallow wetlands that could carry pollution downstream, which the Obama administration estimated would improve drinking water for more than 100 million Americans.
That rule, issued jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, put about 3% more waterways throughout the U.S. under new federal jurisdiction. It required federal permits to pollute those waters and could restrict access altogether. Major waterways, such as most rivers and lakes, were already under protection of the Clean Water Act and still will be.
But since that rule’s introduction, farmers, property developers, chemical manufacturers and oil-and -gas producers have voiced opposition to it, with many saying it intruded on property-owners’ rights and impeded economic growth.
Mr. Trump agreed with that view and signed an executive order directing the EPA to consider a much narrower interpretation of “navigable waters” as outlined in a 2006 Supreme Court opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia.
“The old water rule, which sought to regulate dry land, was confusing and counterproductive,” said Jay Timmons, leader of the National Association of Manufacturers, which has been a major participant in industry’s legal challenges.
Companies apply for permits under the Clean Water Act when doing a host of industrial activities such as building roads and bridges and discharging of waste material like sewage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which issues Clean Water Act permits along with the EPA, says it approves tens of thousands of such permits a year.