Trump’s EPA proposes clean water rollback

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration unveiled its plan Tuesday for a major rollback of the Clean Water Act, a blueprint drawn up at the behest of farm groups, developers and other business interests to end federal protections - or what opponents call massive government overreach - on thousands of miles of streams, tributaries and wetlands nationwide.

Acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the Obama-era rule that put those waters under the protection of the Clean Water Act 'further expanded Washington's reach into privately owned lands.”

'They claimed it was in the interest of water quality, but it was really about power,” he said. 'Power in the hands of the federal government over landowners.”

Despite the 2015 rule - which was blocked from taking effect in about half the states - and millions being spent on water quality improvement efforts in the Mississippi Basin, pollution washing off farm fields from fertilizers and pesticides persists.

In December, an investigation by The Gazette found the Midwest is facing worsening troubles from undrinkable well water, recreational lakes choked by toxic algae and budget-busting upgrades for water treatment plants trying to keep up with nitrate and phosphorous runoff.

The Obama administration clean water regulation, known as the Waters of the United States, was questioned by the courts and fiercely opposed by Republican farm state politicians.

In September, a federal judge sided with Gov. Kim Reynolds in allowing Iowa to be included among states temporarily halting the regulation.

Tuesday, the GOP governor said in a statement members of the Trump administration came to Iowa to meet with farmers to hear concerns.

'The new WOTUS rule provides much needed stability to our farmers after years of uncertainty from the Obama administration's massive federal overreach with the original WOTUS rule,” her statement said.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who long has decried the Obama regulation, offered applause in a statement for rolling back the requirements.

'Iowa's farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and small businesses can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that, going forward, a tire track that collects rain water won't be regulated by the federal government,” her statement said.

The Obama administration argued it was a myth that the rule placed puddles and waterlogged ditches under government oversight.

Rather, it said in announcing the regulation it was trying to settle a decadeslong question over how far the Clean Water Act reached.

The rule, as it applied to farms, would limit farmers near bodies of water - including streams that held water only part of the year - from doing certain kinds of plowing and requiring them to get permits before applying pesticides and fertilizers that could run into larger waters.

Obama's EPA concluded that enforcing the protections widely on wetlands and seasonal streams would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits to the national economy.

The Trump administration's proposal disputes those benefits, concluding any economic boost to be gained from the Obama-era rule is eclipsed by its costs.

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump campaigned against the rule and won support in rural communities.

His administration's proposal, which now moves into a 60-day public comment period, is certain to draw legal challenges from environmental groups and some states, possibly including California.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra repeated the state's position Tuesday, saying in a message on Twitter that the state would 'defend CA's right to clean drinking water and pollution-free streams and lakes.”

Reuters and the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.