Biden administration acts to restore clean-water safeguards

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration took action Thursday to restore federal protections for hundreds of thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, undoing a Trump-era rule that was considered one of that administration’s hallmark environmental rollbacks.

At issue is a regulation sometimes referred to as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, that defines the types of waterways qualifying for federal protection under the Clean Water Act. The regulation has long been a point of contention among environmental groups, farmers, homebuilders, lawmakers and the courts.

The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army reinstates a rule in place before 2015 while the Biden administration arrives at its own, which is expected to be next year.

The administration had said in June that it planned to repeal the Trump-era water rule and issue new regulations defining which waterways are federally protected under the Clean Water Act. In August, a federal judge in Arizona threw out the Trump water rule and restored a 1986 standard. It was broader in scope than the Trump rule but narrower than what was established by the Obama administration, which brought federal protections to nearly 60% of the nation’s waterways.

The Trump-era rule was long sought by builders, oil and gas developers, farmers and others who complained about the federal overreach of Obama administration restrictions that they said stretched into gullies, creeks and ravines on farmland and other private property. They have frequently argued that broad federal protections for waterways make it difficult to do their work.

The agency’s action Thursday formalizes steps it already has been taking since the court order.

Environmental groups and public health advocates say a strong federal rule is crucial to...