Ahead of Major Court Case, EPA Revises Clean-Water Protections
The Biden administration is working to complete a clean water regulation before a Supreme Court ruling that could complicate the government's ability to protect wetlands and other waters. From a report: The Environmental Protection Agency rule, which was finalized on Friday, essentially reverts protections for millions of streams, marshes and other bodies of water to levels that existed before the Obama administration made major changes in 2015, leading to nearly a decade of political and legal disputes. With the Supreme Court expected to rule next year in a major case that could reduce the government's authority to regulate wetlands, experts called the Biden administration's move strategic. Getting a rule on the books now gives the E.P.A. a greater chance of locking in, at least for a while, a broad definition of which waterways qualify for federal protection under the Clean Water Act. "If the Supreme Court goes first, then the agency can't finalize a rule that goes beyond it," said Kevin S. Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who served as an E.P.A. counsel in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. By issuing a rule first, he said, the government has "more room to interpret" the court decision when it comes. Under the new rule, the E.P.A. revived a definition of what constitute "waters of the United States" that had been in place since 1986, describing the definition as "familiar" and foundational to decades of clean-water progress. In a statement, the agency said the changes imposed by the Obama administration, a subsequent reversal by the Trump administration and several legal battles in between, had "harmed communities and our nation's waters."
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