The Trump administration was expected to announce completion as soon as Thursday of one of its most momentous environmental rollbacks, removing federal protections for millions of miles of the country’s streams, arroyos and wetlands.
- Replacement to President Barack Obama’s 2015 Waters of the United States regulation, also known as WOTUS or the Clean Water Rule.
- President Obama sought to clarify which streams and wetlands should be protected underthe1972 federal Clean Water Act.
- Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling and endangered species protections.
- Trump claimed armers gathered around him wept with gratitude when he signed an order for the rollback in February 2017.
- The rollback will benefit “real estate developers and those in other nonfarm business sectors who take out the most permits for impinging on wetlands and waterways — and stand to reap the biggest regulatory and financial relief” based on the government’s own studies.
“This administration’s eliminating clean water protections to protect polluters instead of protecting people.
Blan Holman, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“I terminated one of the most ridiculous regulations of all: the last administration’s disastrous Waters of the United States rule. Thank you. It’s gone. That was a rule that basically took your property away from you.”
-DJT #WorstPresidentEver
