Trump’s EPA Takes Away State & Tribal Rights To Protect Their Own Water

Originally published on the NRDC Expert Blog.

Editor’s note: Isn’t this exactly the opposite of what the EPA was formed to do, protect us from polluting industries?

This move makes it that much easier for industry to barrel risky proposals for things like oil and gas pipelines toward approval.

Further, issues of poverty, environmental inequality, and social injustice are pieces of the power and control crisis that has our streets filled with passionate advocates for peace. This move from Trump’s EPA will lead to more environmental injustice.

Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule that limits states’ and Indigenous tribes’ authority to protect the water within their own borders from federally authorized destructive projects such as oil and gas pipelines, hydropower dams, and wetland fills.

“Enforcing state and federal laws is essential to protecting critical lakes, streams, and wetlands from harmful pollutants and other threats,” says Jon Devine, director of federal water policy at NRDC. “This action undermines how our foundational environmental laws work.”

The new rule impacts Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, under which state and tribal leaders can review the risks of federally permitted projects and take steps to protect their waters. The law requires such projects to obtain state or tribal “certification” before moving forward. These certifications often impose conditions to protect water resources. Ensuring that local leaders’ authority remains intact is important, as states often have unique knowledge of the area’s conditions or stronger water protections than the federal government.

Under the latest rule, which comes in the wake of other attacks on clean water by the administration, federal agencies can now reject the decisions made by states and tribes. In addition, the rule makes the reviews themselves much more narrow in scope, making it difficult for states and tribes to factor in broad impacts on an ecosystem.

“This is a dangerous mistake,” Devine says. “It makes a mockery of this EPA’s claimed respect for ‘cooperative federalism.’”

States have exercised their authority under the Clean Water Act “efficiently, effectively, and equitably,” says the Western Governors’ Association, but developers have been trying to curtail that authority for decades, and the federal government is now siding with industry. The Trump administration has especially targeted Section 401—particularly after New York State stopped several natural gas pipelines, including the recently blocked Williams Pipeline, that threatened its water supplies.

“The federal government should be setting baseline standards,” Devine says, “while states apply and enhance them to the benefit of their unique natural resources and their residents.”

Related Stories:

• States Sue EPA Over Emissions Rollback As 9th Circuit Refuses To Allow Oil Companies To Seek Shelter In Federal Court
• Why We Fight: Political & Economic Power Belong In Your Hands
• The EPA’s Dirty Water: New Rule Discards Science, Ignores Importance of Wetlands & Tributaries
• With The Public Distracted, Interior Department Moves Full Speed Ahead On Oil & Gas Leases

Featured image: screenshot from EPA, epa.gov/wetlands