Ahead of Major Court Case, EPA Revises Clean-Water Protections (nytimes.com) 31
The Biden administration is working to complete a clean water regulation before a Supreme Court ruling that could complicate the government's ability to protect wetlands and other waters. From a report: The Environmental Protection Agency rule, which was finalized on Friday, essentially reverts protections for millions of streams, marshes and other bodies of water to levels that existed before the Obama administration made major changes in 2015, leading to nearly a decade of political and legal disputes. With the Supreme Court expected to rule next year in a major case that could reduce the government's authority to regulate wetlands, experts called the Biden administration's move strategic. Getting a rule on the books now gives the E.P.A. a greater chance of locking in, at least for a while, a broad definition of which waterways qualify for federal protection under the Clean Water Act.
"If the Supreme Court goes first, then the agency can't finalize a rule that goes beyond it," said Kevin S. Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who served as an E.P.A. counsel in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. By issuing a rule first, he said, the government has "more room to interpret" the court decision when it comes. Under the new rule, the E.P.A. revived a definition of what constitute "waters of the United States" that had been in place since 1986, describing the definition as "familiar" and foundational to decades of clean-water progress. In a statement, the agency said the changes imposed by the Obama administration, a subsequent reversal by the Trump administration and several legal battles in between, had "harmed communities and our nation's waters."
"If the Supreme Court goes first, then the agency can't finalize a rule that goes beyond it," said Kevin S. Minoli, a partner at Alston & Bird who served as an E.P.A. counsel in the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. By issuing a rule first, he said, the government has "more room to interpret" the court decision when it comes. Under the new rule, the E.P.A. revived a definition of what constitute "waters of the United States" that had been in place since 1986, describing the definition as "familiar" and foundational to decades of clean-water progress. In a statement, the agency said the changes imposed by the Obama administration, a subsequent reversal by the Trump administration and several legal battles in between, had "harmed communities and our nation's waters."
Supreme Court (Score:2, Funny)
Well the constitution and bible do not mention wetlands, therefor the government has no authority to regulate them.
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Well the constitution and bible do not mention wetlands, therefor the government has no authority to regulate them.
Well it has the ability to regulate interstate commerce, which I assume is why the law talks about "navigable waters", because they presumably affect interstate commerce (though I could be mistaken).
Of course it's a bit of a stretch to call environmental regs interstate commerce, but I assume that even a hyper-conservative SCOTUS has recognized that originalism is non-starter in this regard if you want a functional government.
Re:Supreme Court (Score:4, Informative)
The issue here is how the Obama Administration expanded the definition of 'navigable water' to basically include any pond or puddle within a certain distance of a stream. It was an extreme overreach. The fact that the Biden Administration is racing against the clock to change the regulations before the Court can rule tells you they know they have no ground to stand on in this case. They're desperately trying to to an end run to get the case dismissed on the basis the plaintiff's complaint is no longer relevant. They will then put back the regulations (perhaps even stricter and more evasive to private property rights).
This is nothing more than a dishonest, dirty trick by and Administration that does not believe in separation of powers and that they don't need either Congress or the Court's permission to push far Left regulations (or spending). After four years of screaming Trump is not a King, they're acting like a Dictator.
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Maybe the Biden administration just wants to try to keep as many bodies of water clean in the US as possible. The extremist SCOTUS want the opposite.
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Fuck water..Americans don't need clean water or air. Supt Side Jesus demands every waterway be polluted. How dare you defy God's will?
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I mean, don't let any details get in the way of your worldview. The Trump administration repealed that Obama rule you mention. Of course, Trump replaced it with his own, because he also hates Separation of Powers. And the Biden admin is modifying the Trump one because a federal judge ruled the Trump one was unconstitutional.
Someone's always going to be unhappy. I guess I'd rather be unhappy with clean water than unhappy with toxic rivers.
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Right. What you want is good, and what anyone else wants is bad. You, personally, are a piece of shit. I propose that I get to shove your head into one of the "unregulated" waterways, and see if you survive.
When I was a little kid, when mammoths walked the earth, I can remembering both the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers in Philly smelling like human shit. Then the EPA came into existence, and that stopped.
You want those days back, scum.
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Originalism does not prevent a functional government in any way.
The States can still regulate and Originalism expects them to.
Who is pro-pollution? (Score:2, Interesting)
Who is against clean air & clean water? I mean people btw, real people, that breath air, drink & swim in water. We need stronger protections, not weaker. Fucking insanity. Fucking idiots.
Re: Who is pro-pollution? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Who is pro-pollution? (Score:2)
So you don't care if we destroy eco systems. Fine. But your right to be stupid ends where it harms me. And those sardines going mean a lot more damage to clean water in the background. It means that farming in that region is exhausting the ground and water resources. It means that in the short term you can make a quick buck and long term you'll see the collapse of all farms at the same time.
Google the newfoundland codfish collapse for an example.
Trying to keep your eco system intact is even described in the
Re:Who is pro-pollution? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who is against clean air & clean water? I mean people btw, real people, that breath air, drink & swim in water. We need stronger protections, not weaker. Fucking insanity. Fucking idiots.
In my understanding the big issue is farmers not knowing how bodies of water on their land are affected. Can they fill in a small stream or pond on their property? What if it only has water some of the time? What if it was previously a pond or river? What if they add a new water feature, does it now have protection?
We definitely need protections, but we need to do it in a way that's fair to people who are directly affected by the rule, like farmers.
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Small streams, ponds, wetlands, all of them, not matter where they are located, are part of the watershed. Unless it's somehow isolated with a hardened clay/concrete basin of some sort, the water moves. No matter who owns the property.
Not that I disagree with you completely but farmers need to use better methods of fertilizing. Something better than spreading manure in the winter that ends up running off into the watershed creating massive algae blooms in Lake Erie. Fair as we can get, but the stupid s
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Unless it's somehow isolated with a hardened clay/concrete basin of some sort, the water moves. No matter who owns the property.
It is standard practice to install a plastic liner in a manmade reservoir pond.
Re:Who is pro-pollution? (Score:4, Insightful)
My understanding is that the Obama-era policy used a novel and somewhat extreme interpretation of "waters" to expand the EPA's authority into places it previously had not regulated. Regardless of one's opinion on the efficacy/necessity of the actual regulating they're doing, I think it's natural that there would be some trepidation about/resistance to expansion of government outside of the democratic process. The true will of the people is supposed to come from the legislature, not an executive branch "reinterpretation".
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Can you define "clean"?
Example: The USGS, EPA and fisheries groups have been doing studies on the effects of copper and copper salts on fish and other aquatic life. Conclusions by these groups seem to be headed toward copper being bad. OK, Fine. But it is naturally occurring in various forms. And in significant quantities such that it was one of the first ores that was picked up off the ground, smelted and worked by native Americans.
The EPA can run around with their parts per billion sensitive monitoring
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Who is against clean air & clean water? I mean people btw, real people, that breath air, drink & swim in water.
I drive a car around. Does that make me pro-pollution?
I buy all sorts of things which are made with industrial processes which release emissions and generate toxic wastes. I guess that makes me pro-pollution even more.
Please express some nuance. I'm not willing to live a pastoral hunter-gatherer lifestyle (without campfires--those pollute!). I doubt you are either. That means it's a question of how much pollution, not whether to accept any at all.
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Yep, your right, I don't want to somehow return to some prehistoric lifestyle & yes, I drive a car. However, using technology to move forward with less polluting industrial processes is the way to go. We've come a really long way since 1970 but not without continually fighting every single step of the way. We just need to keep fighting.
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Yep, your right, I don't want to somehow return to some prehistoric lifestyle & yes, I drive a car. However, using technology to move forward with less polluting industrial processes is the way to go. We've come a really long way since 1970 but not without continually fighting every single step of the way. We just need to keep fighting.
No arguments about goals. All things being equal, we all prefer a cleaner environment to a more polluted one.
I suspect where we might respectfully disagree is methods. I'm not a big believer in government regulation to achieve optimal results. For example, government policies now strongly lean towards EVs as a way to clean the environment. That addresses the visible problem of tailpipe emissions but color me skeptical it accounts for the full lifecycle costs of an EV. As many people have pointed out, it's n
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Maybe market forces get these muti-nationally owed corporations interested in investing in pollution controls a little bit here & there. There is also the threat of liability when they poison people with legal/illegal dumping. Usually a lot of people in the right neighborhoods need to be hurt first. Otherwise the only thing that has made any improvement on cleaner air/water is government laws & regulations. Am I missing another way?
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Maybe market forces get these muti-nationally owed corporations interested in investing in pollution controls a little bit here & there. There is also the threat of liability when they poison people with legal/illegal dumping. Usually a lot of people in the right neighborhoods need to be hurt first. Otherwise the only thing that has made any improvement on cleaner air/water is government laws & regulations. Am I missing another way?
Nope, that seems about it: consumer preference, cost control (using fewer inputs can be profitable), litigation, government regulation.
the goal is to make federal agencies powerless (Score:4, Informative)
Make no mistake the current right wing court seeks to make federal angencies powerless. Do they sometimes have too much latitude ? yes. Should congress sometimes be more clear ? yes. is they goal to make things more reasonable ? no.
They will require congress to pass laws which describe, in excrutiating and unrealistic detail, what the agencies should do, how they should do it, and require unreasonable and unworkable levels of detail. You absolutely do not want that. Can you imagine some of the morons in congress who think the earth is 6000 years old writing exactly how the FDA, or the EPA, should do it's job ?
That's the goal and they will just continue to deny agencies the ability to actually do their work until regulations are impossible to implement.
privatize the profits and socialize the losses is ALWAYS the goal. Making sure that regulations are impossible to enforce achieves that goal.
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They will require congress to pass laws which describe, in excrutiating and unrealistic detail, what the agencies should do, how they should do it, and require unreasonable and unworkable levels of detail
Yes, that's exactly what happened with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The EPA here is acting under newly granted authority There's over seventy sections in the IPA 2022 law that outlined in massive detail what the EPA can and cannot do. There's over 1,000 new codifications from this law strictly related to just the EPA. This addendum to the IPA law was in response to the WV case in 2022.
The Supreme Court has indicated that Congress must be explicit going forward and Congress has indicated that wi