Trump Administration Moves To Slash Federal Protection For Waterways

The Trump administration on Tuesday proposed to sharply limit the federal government’s authority to regulate the pollution of wetlands and tributaries that run into the nation’s largest rivers, a move that could ease development by home builders, farmers and shale oil and gas drillers. The administration said it would introduce a “new construct,” limiting regulation to streams that held water in a “typical year” as measured against the past 30 years of precipitation. “This will be a significant retreat from how jurisdiction has been defined for decades,” said Ann Navaro, who worked at the Army Corps of Engineers and at the Interior and Justice Departments.