Republicans heap praise on Clean Water Act plan
Republicans praised the Trump administration’s draft rewrite of a key Clean Water Act regulation, calling it a win for farmers, businesses, homebuilders and landowners who would see reduced permitting costs.
About half a dozen Republican lawmakers attended an event at EPA headquarters Monday announcing the rollout of the new proposed “waters of the U.S.” definition.
Democrats on Capitol Hill fired off statements condemning the proposal but it’s unclear what — if anything — they can do to halt it.
Republicans described it as a welcome departure from the Biden administration’s approach and said it would rightfully return regulatory powers from the federal government to the states.
“I’m confident that the rule will prioritize clean water while protecting farmers, ranchers, landowners and businesses alike,” said Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment.
Democrats called the proposal a blow to the nation’s water supplies, including the wetlands and streams that feed the drinking water sources for millions of Americans. Like Republicans, they are framing their position around costs.
“This latest Trump administration action will increase costs on families by making clean drinking water harder to obtain, and cause lasting damage to our rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands,” said Reps. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
Under the Clean Water Act, waters and wetlands cannot be filled in or polluted without a requisite permit from EPA or the Army Corps of Engineers. But the law applies only to “waters of the U.S.,” a term whose definition has changed five times since the mid-2000s and ping-ponged across presidential administrations.
The proposal seeks to conform with a landmark 2023 Supreme Court ruling, Sackett v. EPA, which ruled that only wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to a “relatively permanent” water were covered by the 1972 law.
The Biden administration reluctantly amended its WOTUS regulation in response to that high court ruling. But industry groups and property rights advocates argued that the former administration’s approach wasn’t clear.
The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing last year highlighting those complaints, and Republicans have echoed the concerns. They appear satisfied with the new direction.
“The proposed rule ensures that only wetlands with a true, continuous connection to jurisdictional waters fall under federal oversight,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a statement.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said the rule would end the “whiplash” and closely follows the Clean Water Act and Sackett.
EPA and the Army Corps estimated that about 73.5 million acres of wetlands — just over 80 percent of the total acreage — in the contiguous 48 states would not be covered by the Clean Water Act under the new definition.
But the proposal’s effects on wetlands and streams could vary depending on the state, with arid states generally the most likely to see some waters lose federal jurisdiction.
“@POTUS is once again putting our precious water resources at risk,” said Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus in a post on X. “Not only would this proposal result in the vast majority of streams in Nevada losing federal protections, it would also jeopardize our groundwater.”
Only about 1.6 percent of Nevada’s wetlands would be protected under the new plan, per the agencies’ estimates. The rule would also, for the first time, explicitly exclude groundwater from the definition of WOTUS.
Larsen and Wilson suggested the rule could prove unpopular among Americans. Polls have shown that access to clean water is one of voters’ top environmental priorities.
“Americans overwhelmingly support the Clean Water Act — one of the most successful pieces of environmental legislation in history,” the pair said in a joint statement.
Democrats have introduced legislation to restore lost protections for wetlands in the wake of Sackett. Such a policy would have little or no prospect of passing in the current Congress.