The Trump administration would "strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands and groundwater, handing a victory to farmers [and] fossil fuel producers," wrote The New York Times. "California will be hit hard as Trump administration weakens clean water protections," warned the Los Angeles Times. "Trump erodes water protections," declared Politico.
"This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen," Southern Environmental Law Center lawyer Blan Holman told the Times.
These articles all note that the new rules would remove federal authority from a huge percentage of streams, ponds, and other waters. That it has that effect is evidence, not of the Trump administration's radicalism, but of the overreaching nature of the previous clean water rules, says Tony Francois, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation.
"It may be factually true that this will regulate a smaller swath of private property," Francois tells Reason, "but the reason for that is what they were doing before is illegal."
https://reason.com/2020/01/24/trump...ions-on-puddles-dry-stream-beds-some-ditches/
"This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen," Southern Environmental Law Center lawyer Blan Holman told the Times.
These articles all note that the new rules would remove federal authority from a huge percentage of streams, ponds, and other waters. That it has that effect is evidence, not of the Trump administration's radicalism, but of the overreaching nature of the previous clean water rules, says Tony Francois, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation.
"It may be factually true that this will regulate a smaller swath of private property," Francois tells Reason, "but the reason for that is what they were doing before is illegal."
https://reason.com/2020/01/24/trump...ions-on-puddles-dry-stream-beds-some-ditches/