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United States Government The Courts

EPA Removes Federal Protections For Most of the Country's Wetlands (npr.org) 122

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country's wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The EPA and Department of the Army announced a final rule amending the definition of protected "waters of the United States" in light of the decision in Sackett v. EPA in May, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and the agency's power to regulate waterways and wetlands. A 2006 Supreme Court decision determined that wetlands would be protected if they had a "significant nexus" to major waterways. This year's court decision undid that standard. The EPA's new rule "removes the significant nexus test from consideration when identifying tributaries and other waters as federally protected," the agency said.

In May, Justice Samuel Alito said the navigable U.S. waters regulated by the EPA under the Clean Water Act do not include many previously regulated wetlands. Writing the court's decision, he said the law includes only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and wetlands with a "continuous surface connection to those bodies." The EPA said the rule will take effect immediately. "The agencies are issuing this amendment to the 2023 rule expeditiously -- three months after the Supreme Court decision -- to provide clarity and a path forward consistent with the ruling," the agency said. As a result of the rule change, protections for many waterways and wetlands will now fall to states.

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EPA Removes Federal Protections For Most of the Country's Wetlands

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  • by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:12PM (#63810278)

    This is just another step in the Supreme Court's establishment of monopoly capitalism as the controlling law of the land.
    The Citizens United case opened up all elected officials to bribery by corporations. All of your "elected" representatives are now owned by corporations and billionaires.
    Now we have them nullifying the authority to regulate environmental protection. Corporations will be free to "develop" land without those pesky environmentalists bothering them with frivolous lawsuits protecting flora, fauna and wetland buffers (which prevent flooding from hurricanes).
    We live in a corporate kleptocracy... get used to getting fleeced more and more every day.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by manoweb ( 1993306 )
      No, it does not work that way. It is up to CONGRESS to make those laws, elected officials, not an agency to come up with arbitrary rules that have large impacts. It is the basis of the separation of powers and checks and balances, an extremely reasonable set of concepts that have worked very well.
        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by hdyoung ( 5182939 )
          Nuanced details are lost on most conservatives. (Regulation = bad) is about as deep as most of them can go.

          There are exceptional conservative thinkers. But not many of them.
        • Yes by definition government agencies enforce laws with a set of regulations. However regulations have to work in a framework created by laws (congress), and laws must work in the framework set by the constitution (have you read it?). It's not too difficult to understand that regulations cannot be arbitrary in scope and that separation of powers is a very basic concept used by all advanced nations.
        • And strictly constitutionally speaking, administrative law should not exist, the administration (executive branch) should not make laws, the legislature should do so.

          Yes, the legislature has made the decision to hand over power throughout the years, however in this and many other cases the administration has subsequently gone far beyond their defined powers.

          Administrative judges donâ(TM)t answer to anyone, they arenâ(TM)t held to follow constitutional rules etc, administrative trials do not have t

          • I'd strike "strictly" from that statement.

            I would have been a swing vote at the Constitutional Convention, and my politics have always been on the straight line between Hamilton and Jefferson (although they've drifted towards the former as I've aged).

            And, yes, I'm a lawyer.

            The most persuasive legal authority at the time of the convention would have been Blackstone. And *his* explanation of the roles of executive and legislative authority put policy choice in the legislature (parliament/congress), and the *

            • As a layperson, I see Congress's primary tool against "runaway administration" as budgetary

              This tool has become worn and blunted (shutting down the government is not really popular and those doing it can get negative polls), so they have made the courts a primary tactic in "reigning in the administration"

              We have gotten into this situation through intransigent political polarization, which is now reflected in that long-term right-wing "space shot" project, the Supreme Court

              Alito floated some carp about water

              • by hawk ( 1151 )

                I'll start by noting that the "6-3 conservative majority" is a myth. It just isn't so.

                The actual split is 4-3-2, with conservatives being the smallest block (Alito & Roberts).

                There are 4 constitutionalists of various stripes (literalists, original intent, strict construction, etc.). more often than not, but far from "usually", most of them form a majority with the conservatives in individual cases. And other times, all 4 vote with the liberals.

                I've really never seen a suggestion before that wetlands l

      • Cool, now do abortion.

      • That's exactly what Congress has done. The EPA wasn't just willed into existence be pinko commie leftists, but rather brought about by an act of Congress. Congress followed on by passing a number of acts giving the EPA it's broad authority. If the US operated the way you are starting it should, it would dysfunctional shithole and Congress long-ago would have been reduced to being a rubber-stamp factory just to keep the country running.
    • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:30PM (#63810332) Homepage Journal

      This is just another step in the Supreme Court's establishment of monopoly capitalism as the controlling law of the land.

      It's the Supreme Court's response to government overreach.

      It's the legislature that creates the laws. If the Supreme Court finds the law unclear and generates overreach, then it's the job of the legislature to clarify the law.

      The legislature could give the EPA authority over the wetlands.

      The Citizens United case opened up all elected officials to bribery by corporations. All of your "elected" representatives are now owned by corporations and billionaires. Now we have them nullifying the authority to regulate environmental protection.

      Just exactly how is the Supreme Court nullifying the authority here? The authority comes from legislation, and the existing legislation didn't give them authority in the first place.

      And just how are corporations nullifying authority? Because the Supreme Court agreed with the corporations that the EPA didn't have that authority?

      We live in a corporate kleptocracy... get used to getting fleeced more and more every day.

      We live in a world of divisiveness fueled by spiteful hatred. This is not a strategy for success.

      A better strategy is to try bringing people together instead of throwing random hatred at your personal bugaboo.

      • It's the legislature that creates the laws. If the Supreme Court finds the law unclear and generates overreach, then it's the job of the legislature to clarify the law. The legislature could give the EPA authority over the wetlands.

        I find this decision horrifying: the EPA should have the ability to regulate people from destroying wetlands, since are critical to the environment and ecosystem.

        ...but it also seems to be correct. If the act allow the EPA to regulate discharges into navigable waterways, then if it's not a navigable waterway, they shouldn't be able to regulate it.

        • by Mononymous ( 6156676 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @06:35PM (#63810556)

          find this decision horrifying: the EPA should have the ability to regulate people from destroying wetlands, since are critical to the environment and ecosystem.

          The Constitution doesn't grant Congress that authority. The EPA exists because Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, not local land use in a state.

          • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @07:09PM (#63810620) Journal

            Water moves across state lines.

            The court has decided that Congress has the right to regulate what you grow in your own back yard, because someone else may move a similar plant from one state to another. This may or may not be a good decision, but it is what the Supreme Court has decided in the past. On the other hand, this court appears to be skilled at doublethink, so ....

            • by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @07:28PM (#63810664)

              The court has decided that Congress has the right to regulate what you grow in your own back yard, because someone else may move a similar plant from one state to another.

              That decision was Wickard v. Filburn in 1942, which ratified the New Deal's "Marketing Order" authority to limit what farers could grow on their own land, even if the extra product was not sold into interstate commerce. We of the dark side relish the possibility that the current SCOTUS will reverse what we consider one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. If they do that. it will have effect of drastically limiting what federal agencies can regulate.

              • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @07:47PM (#63810720) Journal

                I doubt the current Supreme Court would reverse Wickard v Filburn because there are many other cases that would also need to be reversed, such as Gonzales v. Raich, which would go against their ideology.

                On the other hand, this court has shown little regard for logic and intellectual honesty, so perhaps they would reverse one case, but not the others that rely on it.

                • I doubt the current Supreme Court would reverse Wickard v Filburn because there are many other cases that would also need to be reversed, such as Gonzales v. Raich, which would go against their ideology.

                  I would hope they would overturn this one too...

                  And it isn't only a conservative thing...there are plenty of democrats that are against this too...otherwise why didn't they make laws legalizing it when they had vast majorities and all 3 branches of govt in recent years (Obama and Biden)?

                  There are Republi

                  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                    • Biden's administration is trying to do it through rule making [politico.com], so we'll see what happens there. Not as good as an Act of Congress and also something that takes time, but better than nothing.

                      While I'd like to see movement on this...I have to hope that the "rule making" fails horribly.

                      That isn't the route that law was supposed to be made and the president is not a king and can NOT make law, which IMHO, is exactly what the office is and has been trying for way too long now.

                      But I agree....it

            • The court has decided that Congress has the right to regulate what you grow in your own back yard, because someone else may move a similar plant from one state to another. This may or may not be a good decision, but it is what the Supreme Court has decided in the past.

              It was a very poor decision, IMHO....

              And potentially, little by little, the current SCOTUS going forward can dismantle this, or possibly at some point, overturn it and set things more the way the US was intended, and halt the vast overreach

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Mononymous ( 6156676 )

              Water moves across state lines.

              And authoritarians love to invoke the fundamental interconnectedness of all things to arrogate unconstitutional power to the federal government.
              I don't like the current Supreme Court, but they got this one right.

    • by farble1670 ( 803356 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:30PM (#63810334)

      This is just another step in the Supreme Court's establishment of monopoly capitalism as the controlling law of the land.

      It's just the opposite of that.

      protections for many waterways and wetlands will now fall to states.

      Level of protection can now be democratically determined by people who vote on these matters at the state level, as opposed to being imposed unelected officials of the EPA.

      We live in a corporate kleptocracy... get used to getting fleeced more and more every day.

      Great FUD rant though, really.

      • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:36PM (#63810354) Journal

        protections for many waterways and wetlands will now fall to states.

        Level of protection can now be democratically determined by people who vote on these matters at the state level, as opposed to being imposed unelected officials of the EPA.

        I predict that any law will be met with challenges on the basis that this is covered by the Interstate Commerce clause and that states don't have the authority to regulate this.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by ZipNada ( 10152669 )

        "democratically determined by people who vote on these matters at the state level", except many states are massively gerrymandered. Pols that are heavily funded by the pollution industry can just step right in and make sure nothing can stop it.

      • by MinaInerz ( 25726 ) on Thursday August 31, 2023 @08:23AM (#63811852) Homepage

        Thatâ(TM)s a great point, I hope it all works out well for you when the state upstream of yours democratically votes to starting dumping pollution into its waterways.

        • What could go wrong with letting a group on unelected individuals that answer to no one decide the fate of hundreds of millions of people?

          Nothing is perfect, but history is well on the side of letting people control their own fates. The fact that you happen to agree with the small group on people, this time, isn't a great argument for an authoritarian system.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by hdyoung ( 5182939 )
      This isn’t about capture by business. It’s about the Supreme Court conservatives trying to pull as much power as possible away from the federal government and return it to the states. Like it or hate it, that’s the theme for the next decade or two. You better pay attention to which state you live in, cause a lot of red states won’t care at all about the quality of their water. Anyone that matters can drink bottled. Tap is for the poors, and by todays conservative philosophy, poor peo
      • "You better pay attention to which state you live in, cause a lot of red states won’t care at all about the quality of their water."

        Actually many of the red states and a few of the blue ones have long histories of their own water laws that fit their conditions. Letting a bureaucrat 2000 miles away make rules for someplace he/she has never seen, doesn't understand, and has no interest in except to signal virtue or to "preserve the environment in case I want to take a vacation there someday and to hell

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        You better pay attention to which state you live in, cause a lot of red states won’t care at all about the quality of their water. Anyone that matters can drink bottled. Tap is for the poors, and by todays conservative philosophy, poor people are only poor because they deserve it.

        Like in a 3rd world country. How pathetically primitive.

        • Tell people that actually live in third world countries this so they quit migrating here.

          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            They can read this stuff on the Internet and simply refuse to believe it. It is quite unbelievable to be fair.

    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      >This is just another step in the Supreme Court's establishment of monopoly capitalism as the controlling law of the land.

      Oh, bullshit. Federal power over wetlands was always based on the commerce clause, and even now, after this change, most still have nothing to do with commerce. And no, migratory birds are not commerce.

      Wickard v. Filburn needs to die. This is the United States.

      >Citizens United

      ...was poorly decided. Properly argued, it had nothing to do with speech rights. Corporations are ar
    • by stevew ( 4845 )

      The problem with your analysis and the way the article was written is that the "protections" extended into areas that are NOT wetlands according to the legislation that established the EPA! The EPA was calling a field that got rained on - wetlands of the United States where the EPA enabling legislation defines it as "salvageable waters." That wet once a year field isn't something a boat is going to get through.

      In this case the Supreme Court reigned in a rogue US government agency!

    • Naaah, 'Murica has always shat where it eats... or rather the rich have always shat where the poor eat. The supreme court is just returning to that time-honoured tradition. It's the 'Murican way!
    • So we're just going to ignore the fact that rules that govern navigable water are meant to govern water that's...navigable. Your argument implies that somehow the Supreme court made it impossible to put a boat through those wetlands. We could all agree that governing these areas as navigable with a sham from the start, and you could go to work writing new laws that govern non-navigable wetlands, but it's easier just to blame the Supreme Court for being...rational?
      • The Supreme Court is now writing laws rather than just determining constitutionality.
        They have usurped Congress and the Executive branches.

        • "The Supreme Court is now writing laws rather than just determining constitutionality. They have usurped Congress and the Executive branches." This is the same thing the right said for the fifty years preceding this supreme court. To include non-contiguous waters and non-waters in an assessment of navigable waters isn't brilliant, it's just a lie. There's no counter argument, because there's no statement of fact within your assessment. Anything you'd like to add would be an attempt to build upon a foundatio
    • While there are many explanations, one that stands out is the growth of inequality, a problem stemming from modern neoliberal capitalism, which can also be linked in many ways to the erosion of democracy. Economic inequality inevitably leads to political inequality, albeit to varying degrees across countries. In a country like the US, which has virtually no constraints on campaign contributions, âoeone person, one voteâ has morphed into âoeone dollar, one voteâ.

      This political inequality

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:24PM (#63810310)

    Wetlands help to substanitally reduce flooding [epa.gov] by absorbing and/or diverting large amounts of water. They also help prevent erosion [nps.gov]. Mississippi is a good example where the loss of wetlands is leading to loss of land [mississipp...rdelta.org].

    But hey, what's the big deal? It's only those nimrod scientists giving us facts to ignore.

    • by GregMmm ( 5115215 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:46PM (#63810384)

      First you referenced "epa.gov" to back up wetlands. Of course they would back themselves.

      What I would say is the EPA went way too far. I was driving down a gravel road in Washington state next to some rolling hills and pasture. On the side of the road what looked like a small hole about 10 feet across with water in it. There was a fence around it and 6 signs saying "protected wetland" No inlets, or outlets, just the run off from up the hill that got stuck on the way down. But that not all. Now you can't disturb up to 500ft around that little 10 foot puddle.

      If this is what nimrod scientists say is a "wetland" then yes on the nimrod.

      I believe if they would stick to what the EPA was intending for wetlands then I don't think this would have happened. Yes, don't put big huge dairy farms right next to rivers. Have rules for building next to lake and waterways. These make sense. Making the whole of a citizens land unable to be used, and making them pay taxes on it, is wrong.

      Lastly, I don't accept arguments from the "position of authority" if it doesn't make sense. I've met to many "scientists". Just cause you practice the art of science doesn't mean you are intelligent, or wise.

      • I was driving down a gravel road in Washington state next to some rolling hills and pasture. On the side of the road what looked like a small hole about 10 feet across with water in it. There was a fence around it and 6 signs saying "protected wetland" No inlets, or outlets, just the run off from up the hill that got stuck on the way down.

        Cool story bro! Ever hear of the water table? And just maybe it's possible for wetlands to be seasonal?

      • I expect the 10 feet of water was rare habitat for a big swath of the surrounding land.

        "Making the whole of a citizens land unable to be used", as it that landowner didn't know anything about it when they bought the swamp, lol.

    • But hey, what's the big deal? It's only those nimrod scientists giving us facts to ignore.

      Yes: those darned scientists informed policy that was stopping me making a profit. Those rules are now gone, the resulting floods will be on other people's houses, so that does not affect me, thus I do not care.

    • by rskbrkr ( 824653 )
      Is it your understanding that the EPA can do whatever it wants to in the absence of legislation granting the agency such powers as long as scientists agree it's a good thing?
  • by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @05:49PM (#63810394)

    The wetlands withdrawn from protection by the SCOTUS are all those seasonal mud puddles that don't play a significant part in building peat or sheltering unique species. They were placed under EPA control by a miswritten Bush-era law, and Sackett just corrects that error. Nobody is going to be filling in the Everglades.

  • Seriously, the EPA was basically considering any place exposed to water at any time a wetland. I don't think that is reasonable, I don't think normal people (who all live in wetlands under that definition) do either, and I don't think that is what the previous SCOTUS ruling said (see Glancing Geese test, which this all comes back to).

    https://www.aei.org/articles/t... [aei.org]

    Not every puddle (or places where puddles might foreseeably form at any time) qualifies as a wetland. Congress can certainly change tha
  • Thank gods right? I know that couple in Idaho are probably totally stoked. Whee-ew. Long time coming. Don't worry, your day will come when you can fill or drain (or nothing at all--go crazy) your metaphorical swamp too! Whatever your issue, the conservative dream is coming true. Coolsies.

    Guess all that complaining I hear from the political right in America is just that and they are ungrateful for their victories. Because if you don't know what you've done, you're a poser and you should get to fillin

    • The funny thing is, it was a metaphorical swamp, not an actual one. Some neo-slaveing bureaucrats decided all land that ever becomes wet was really theirs to control and by extension their right to control the people who live there. After all, the ignorant hicks who live there did not go to the "right" universities and have no ability to run their own lives without continuous meticulous supervision by properly anointed members of the Professional Managerial Class, now known as the Rich Men North of Richmon

  • by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @11:49PM (#63811134)

    No, the Environmental Protection Agency has NOT removed federal protections for a majority of the country's wetlands. It has not removed ANY protections from ANY actual wetlands. The EPA had dishonestly labelled all sorts of land in the US as "wetlands" in order to assert control over them, and the court stopped the regulatory overstep and is forcing them to not falsely claim all sorts of non-wetlands are wetlands.

    There has been NO CHANGE in the actual status of any actual "wetlands" as congress defined them when it wrote the laws that gave the executive branch such authorities. Had Trump, during his presidency, declared half of America to be Trump resort golf courses, and the courts intervened to say "nope...half the country is not your golf courses", and he then backed down, I can guarantee the slimes who propagandize at NPR every day would NOT report "Interior department takes away most of Trump's golf course land". Same thing. There's been no change in the basic reality of what is a wetland and how such lands are protected; there's just been a limit placed on the EPA's ability to keep expanding its control over land in the USA without any explicit legal authority to do so.

    Disclaimer: I have relatives who spent all their money buying a little chunk of farmland in the hopes of building a small retirement home there. There's never been any standing water seen on that land for probably 100 years...NOBODY in any generation alive there today has ever seen any standing water there. Nevertheless, the EPA declared it "wetlands" and made it so the land could neither be built upon, nor sold. Just because some corruptocrat thousands of miles away decides something is so, that does NOT make it so... even if he knows somebody who might benefit from having a government action destroy the value of somebody's property.

    • If Trump had declared half of America to be Trump resort golf courses, this SCOTUS would have upheld it. Alito or Clarence Ruckus or one of the other pseudo-Americans on the court would have cited the "legal precedent" of a dream they had, or a vision from God, or a face they saw in their sandwich.
      • Why did you even bother sharing that fantasy?
        • Why are you even bothering to pretend it's not true?

          The current majority on the court are deranged fascist nuncios of the Republican Party who will rule that Up is Down whenever necessary to arrive at their predetermined conclusion. Denying it just means you have no credibility.
  • Water isn't water, speech isn't speech, Presidents have absolute power appointed by God when they're Republicans and are little more than parliamentarians if Democratic...

    These pseudo-judges have no credibility. And, to the extent they fail to credibly root their rulings in actual LAW, they have no authority either.
    • The law defined what the EPA could regulate in one way, the EPA decided it meant something else. The Justices read the law, looked at what the EPA said it meant, and said no.

      It isn't the Court that lacks credibility, it's whoever you're parroting.

      • Sure it is, buddy. The same court that says "well-regulated militia" means no regulation ever while the streets flow with blood also says that water isn't water. Also that pregnant women are state property, and that bribery and threats are free speech while expressing opinions they dislike is not.

        These fake judges are essentially a standing committee of January 6 terrorists.
  • Headline is intended to make you think wetland protection is gone. But it ain't, and it's now simply the same as it was before Obama. Wetlands are still protected. What happened is that scotus said EPA does not have authority over land that is not connected to navigable waterways. Before this ruling, the US govt would come along and say, "oh, you can't build a barn there on your property, because there is some little rill that flows near it." It was typical overreach.

    The land that Obama sought to contr

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