Trump celebrates Earth Day by…rolling back clean water protections
On This Day In 2020
In 2015, the Obama Administration’s EPA published the Waters of the United States Act. It built upon the Clean Water Act of 1972 to help the federal government protect certain streams, marshlands, and waterways.
But during his term, Trump’s EPA rolled back more than 110 environmental regulations. OTDI 2020, just before Earth Day, they finalized plans to rescind Obama’s Waters of the United States Act and certain other protections which had been in place since the 1970s. Trump’s actions also enabled polluters to dump fertilizers and pesticides into hundreds of thousands of waterways.
“This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen, said Blan Holman, a specialist in water policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center, in the NYT. “This puts drinking water for millions of Americans at risk of contamination from unregulated pollution. This is not just undoing the Obama rule. This is stripping away protections that were put in place in the ’70s and ’80s that Americans have relied on for their health.”
Gina McCarthy, CEO of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, noted “You don't make America great by polluting our drinking water supplies, making our beaches unfit for swimming, and increasing flood risk.
“This effort neglects established science and poses substantial new risks to people's health and the environment. We will do all we can to fight this attack on clean water," she continued.
The Biden Administration reversed Trump’s action. However, the SCOTUS, dominated by recent Trump appointees, ruled in 2023 that certain protections were disallowed, thereby limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to, you know, Protect the Environment.
Just another reminder that the destruction being wreaked by Trump’s Supreme Court appointees goes far beyond their cancellation of Roe v. Wade protections.
Dive Deeper
The NYT summarizes the Trump Administration’s plans
NPR has details and the McCarthy quote
People followed-up, explaining the Supreme Court’s choice to rule against the EPA