On June 9, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Army announced their intent to revise the definition of “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) after concluding the Trump Administration’s rule is causing “significant environmental degradation,” according to EPA Administrator Michael Regan. In a press release, the Biden Administration said the definition was revised at the request of a “broad array of stakeholders” who “are seeing destructive impacts to critical water bodies under the 2020 rule.”
The action restores the protections in place prior to the Obama Administration’s 2015 WOTUS implementation. EPA said it anticipates developing a new rule that defines WOTUS that is informed by the “experience of implementing the pre-2015 rule, the Obama-era Clean Water Rule, and the Trump-era Navigable Waters Protection Rule.”
The decision to reverse the WOTUS rule comes on the heels of an announcement by the Biden Administration to rescind or replace a number of Trump-era changes to the Endangered Species Act.
SOURCE: National Potato Council
