Tag: Clean Water Act

Is the Water All Right?

EarthJustice discusses Is the Water All Right? Reality-checking President Trump’s remarks on repealed water pollution rule.

In a speech at the American Farm Bureau convention in 2020, President Trump declared, “I terminated one of the most ridiculous regulations of all.” The president was talking about Waters of the United States (WOTUS), or the 2015 Clean Water Rule, which the Obama administration created to better enforce the Clean Water Act, one of the country’s most essential and effective environmental laws.

Like other environmental regulations, WOTUS was necessarily detailed and grounded in science. But the reason for it was simple: keep U.S. waters clean. So what could be so bad about a law to stop water pollution that the Trump administration would decide to repeal it?

Earthjustice is representing tribes and environmental groups in a legal challenge to this attack on water protections. I asked our experts on the matter to address the president’s remarks.

NC regulators deny environmental permit for fracked-gas Southgate pipeline

Appalachian V0ices discusses how NC regulators deny environmental permit for fracked-gas Southgate pipeline.

Today, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality denied the permit application for Southgate extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. The agency said “that work on the Southgate extension could lead to unnecessary water quality impacts and disturbance of the environment in North Carolina.”

After questioning the need for the project to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the DEQ has denied a Clean Water Act permit that would have allowed Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC to cross water bodies in North Carolina and to begin using eminent domain to take private land in both Virginia and North Carolina.

The Appalachian V0ices website is at https://appvoices.org/

 

Trump signs order removing environmental review of major projects

The Hill discusses how Trump signed an order removing environmental review of major projects.

President Trump signed an executive order Thursday evening that would waive requirements under a suite of environmental laws, a move the administration says will boost the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The new order expedites the permitting of construction projects and energy projects overseen by several federal agencies, using emergency authorities to skirt environmental regulations with little public notice.

“From the beginning of my Administration, I have focused on reforming and streamlining an outdated regulatory system that has held back our economy with needless paperwork and costly delays,” Trump wrote in the order. “The need for continued progress in this streamlining effort is all the more acute now, due to the ongoing economic crisis.”

The order would slash the requirements in a number of landmark environmental laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires rigorous environmental review before building new infrastructure like highways or pipelines.

NY Times discusses EPA limiting states’ power, deforestation in Brazil, and mass extinctions

The New York Times discusses how E.P.A. Limits States’ Power to Oppose Pipelines and Other Energy Projects. The agency tweaked the rules on how to apply the Clean Water Act, which New York and other states have used to fight fossil-fuel ventures. The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday announced that it had limited states’ ability to block the construction of energy infrastructure projects, part of the Trump administration’s goal of promoting gas pipelines, coal terminals and other fossil fuel development. The completed rule curtails sections of the U.S. Clean Water Act that New York has used to block an interstate gas pipeline, and Washington employed to oppose a coal export terminal. The move is expected to set up a legal clash with Democratic governors who have sought to block fossil fuel projects.

The New York Times also discusses how Brazil is responsible for more than a third of the total global forest loss in 2019. Destruction of tropical forests worldwide increased last year, led again by Brazil, which was responsible for more than a third of the total, and where deforestation of the Amazon through clear-cutting appears to be on the rise under the pro-development policies of the country’s president.

Last, The New York Times discusses mass extinctions. We are in the midst of a mass extinction, many scientists have warned — this one driven not by a catastrophic natural event, but by humans. The unnatural loss of biodiversity is accelerating, and if it continues, the planet will lose vast ecosystems and the necessities they provide, including fresh water, pollination, and pest and disease control.

The EPA’s new rule discards science, ignores importance of wetlands and tributaries

Environmental Health News discusses how the EPA’s new rule discards science, ignores importance of wetlands and tributaries. No matter how the EPA fiddles with the numbers, the new Clean Water Act rule is a license to pollute—a recipe for dirty water.

Water, water everywhere and hardly a drop is being protected by the Trump Administration.

In its latest act of abdication, the Environmental Protection Agency published its Navigable Waters Protection Rule in the Federal Register on April 21. The rule is scheduled to go into effect June 22, completing the elimination of the Obama Administration’s Waters of the U.S. Rule.

The original rule was designed to protect the majority of America’s water based on hydrologic science, which clearly shows that water flows on many more surface and subsurface paths than just rivers and other obvious waterways. These many pathways in turn connect wetlands and tributaries with large lakes and wide rivers. Indeed, a 2015 EPA report that drew upon 1,200 peer-review studies found that all tributaries, even intermittent and ephemeral streams “are physically, chemically, and biologically connected to downstream rivers.”

Clean Water Act Covers Groundwater Discharges, Supreme Court Rules

The New York Times discusses a Supreme Court ruling that affirms that the Clean Water Act covers groundwater discharges. In a 6-to-3 ruling, the court rejected arguments by a county in Hawaii and the Trump administration that only pollution discharged directly into navigable waters requires permits.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Clean Water Act applies to some pollutants that reach the sea and other protected waters indirectly through groundwater.

The case, County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260, concerned a wastewater treatment plant on Maui, Hawaii, that used injection wells to dispose of some four million gallons of treated sewage each day by pumping it into groundwater about a half-mile from the Pacific Ocean. Some of the waste reached the ocean.

Environmental groups sued, calling it “the clean water case of the century.” A ruling in favor of the treatment plant “would open a massive loophole for every polluter in the country to avoid regulation,” David L. Henkin, a lawyer with Earthjustice, said in November.

Wyoming, Montana Ask US Supreme Court to Hear Coal Export Case

This article discusses why Wyoming, Montana Ask US Supreme Court to Hear Coal Export Case.

Wyoming and Montana have asked the United States Supreme Court to hear their challenge to Washington State’s decision against constructing a coal export terminal for environmental reasons.

Governor Mark Gordon made the announcement Tuesday, reiterating his stance that the decision by the Washington Department of Ecology to deny permits for the construction of a proposed terminal amounts to “unconstitutional discrimination.”

“I did not come to this decision lightly, but Wyoming’s ability to export one of our greatest natural resources is being blocked unlawfully,” Gordon said. “It is critical that Section 401 of the Clean Water Act not be used to interfere with lawful interstate commerce. It is not a tool to erect a trade barrier based on a fashionable political agenda.”

Section 401 allows a state to “ensure that activities associated with federally permitted discharges will not impair state water quality,” Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21, 2018. He cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling which held that “[s]tate certifications under [Section] 401 are essential in the scheme to preserve state authority to address the broad range of pollution.”

Climate Change Court Cases

This E&E News article discusses some court cases that will be decided in 2020. It’s been a busy year for energy companies and U.S. locales embroiled in litigation over climate change damages, but the end still isn’t in sight for these cases.

This E&E News article discusses a court ruling saying that EPA must regulate river temperatures for fish. Federal judges today sided with environmental groups pressing EPA to set temperature limits in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia and Snake rivers to help endangered salmon and steelhead. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said EPA has failed to develop temperature limits as required under the Clean Water Act.

This Independent article discusses a landmark ruling that Holland must cut emissions to protect citizens from climate change upheld by supreme court. The highest court in the Netherlands has upheld a landmark ruling that defines protection from the devastation of climate change as a human right and requires the government to set more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a result.

This NY Times article discusses the same Dutch court case. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands on Friday ordered the government to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by the end of 2020. It was the first time a nation has been required by its courts to take action against climate change.

New EPA Rule Poses Greatest Threat to the Clean Water Act in a Generation

This article discusses changes to EPA Clean Water regulations – posing the greatest threat to the Clean Water Act in a generation.

April 15th is circled in red on calendars for tax day—and for the close of the public comment period on the Environmental Protection Agency’s controversial proposal to rescind safeguards for many waters and wetlands that have long been covered by the Clean Water Act.

The Trump Administration’s new rule would remove federal protections for wetlands lacking a continuous, surface water flow directly into navigable waters—a decision that ignores important hydrological connections through groundwater and other means. According to an analysis by the Southern Environmental Law Center, this proposed rulemaking would repeal federal safeguards for 80 to 90% of our wetlands across the country. (EPA’s own numbers put the rollback at a still unacceptably high 51% loss of coverage.)

Pipeline articles – Pipelines Court says no and Congress tries to say yes.

This article discusses Congress considering changing law for pipeline crossing of Appalachian Trail, Blue Ridge Parkway.

Legislation is pending in Congress that would give the National Park Service clear authority to allow construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline beneath the Appalachian Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway, both potentially critical obstacles under litigation pending in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Dominion Energy, lead partner in the $7 billion project, confirmed the legislative proposal, which first surfaced in a blog post from an Alabama group that suggested aid for the 600-mile natural gas pipeline is “tucked into the omnibus spending bill” being negotiated by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

This article discusses the rationale for why a Federal appeals court rejected permits for Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

A panel of federal judges has rejected permits for the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, finding that the U.S. Forest Service “abdicated its responsibility” and kowtowed to private industry in approving the project. The harshly worded, 60-page decision issued Thursday by three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is part of a string of legal setbacks for the 600-mile pipeline. The $7 billion project, being built by a consortium of companies led by Dominion Energy, is intended to carry natural gas from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina.

This article discusses how Trump’s attacking the Clean Water Act will fuel a destructive boom in pipelines.