Trump administration’s latest Anti-environment move strip protection from Waterways

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The administration of Donald Trump will look to strip federal protection for U.S waterways and wetlands. It will roll back legislation brought in under former U.S president Barack Obama. The EPA (Environment Protection Agency) is set to announce a major rewrite of the Clean Water Rule. The legislation will extend federal protections to thousands of waterways and wetlands. It had got hold of a series of White House proposals which argue that the Obama-era legislation wasn’t regarding water quality, instead of power in the hands of the federal government over farmers, developers, and landowners.

Trump signed an executive order in 2017 to overhaul the Clean Water Rule that deals with the waterways protected under the EPA and U.S Army Corps of Engineers. The legislation had been welcomed by environmental groups who said it protected wetlands, lakes, and rivers from pollutants. But the senior director of wetlands and water resources at the National Wildlife Federation, Jan Goldman-Carter said in a press interview that the rewrite would mean around 60% of the streams in the bottom 48 states would no longer be protected. She also said that protection would be stripped for around half of the U.S wetlands and it would be an unprecedented rollback of Clean Water Act protections.

A director at the Washington-based Conservative Enterprise Institute, Myron Ebell said in a press interview that the pending water rule changes and other rollbacks already announced benefit energy companies, farmers and builders. This is what’s being done in the country to stifle…progress. President Trump is very aware of this. The government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, Brett Hart said that the administration’s plans could open streams, rivers, and wetlands to being paved over, filled in, or polluted. The Clean Water Act is wiping away completely for some parts of the country.