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On August 5, 2021, the EPA and the U.S. Department of the Army announced upcoming community engagement opportunities for public input into their efforts to revise the “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) definition. Redefining WOTUS is a two-part process for the agencies. The first rulemaking will restore the WOTUS definition to the version in […]
New Mexico is known as the “Land of Enchantment,” but it is also a state without a lot of bodies of water. When the Trump administration changed the “navigable waters” definition to include only waters that flowed year-round, both New Mexico and Arizona were particularly hard hit, as the majority of their waterways don’t have […]
In November, the EPA asked the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado to restore its definition of waters that are protected by the Clean Water Act (CWA) after it was struck down by a federal judge at the request of the state of Colorado.
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Navigable Waters Rule (NWR), issued by the Corps and the EPA, will effectively remove 51% of the Corps’s mapped wetlands from federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Much of that eliminated inventory was subject to federal protection under the Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Water […]
Concerns about instructions in a draft memorandum from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler about which proposed documents the Agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) reviews were raised in a letter Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-D) sent to Wheeler. According to Johnson, the draft memo directed that the chair of the SAB, “in consultation with EPA,” would determine […]
Tributary is a key term in the EPA/Army Corps of Engineers’ recent Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, just as it was in the 2015 WOTUS rule the newer rule replaced.
In their just-released final rule, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers (EPA/Corps) provide a definition of the Clean Water Act (CWA) term Waters of the United States (WOTUS) that, the agencies say, is based in the commerce clause of the Constitution.
In draft letters dated October 16, 2019, and addressed to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the chair of the Agency’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) raised substantive concerns about four major EPA regulatory proposals.
The EPA’s commitment to regulatory reform through deregulation is evident in the Agency’s latest Regulatory Agenda. The 145 entries on the Agency’s Fall 2019 Rule List include 56 actions that are expected to be deregulatory; these actions follow the 47 deregulatory amendments the EPA says it has already finalized under President Donald Trump.
Effective 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register, the EPA/Army Corps of Engineers’ (EPA/Corps) final rule repealing the Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Water Rule formally concludes Step 1, the first of two steps to ensure that the states exercise majority control over their water resources. The final rule removes the complex definition of […]