A Trump-era revision of an earlier rule implemented by the Obama administration in 2015 was rolled back after the United States District Court for the District of Arizona found the rule in conflict with the 1972 Clean Water Act.
Obama’s policy, the Waters of the United States, used the 1972 Clean Water Act to place approximately 60 percent of all national waterways under federal protection. After real estate developers, mining companies, and farmers complained that Obama’s regulations were excessive, Trump, in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency, revised Obama’s policy, limiting federal restrictions of numerous wetlands, marshes, streams, and more. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler explained the original repeal of Obama’s policy was due to states having “their own protections for waters within their borders'' and that many of these states ``regulate more broadly than the federal government”.
He described the change as the federal government's attempt to strike “the proper balance between Washington, D.C., and the states”. As a result of returning this power to a state level, chemicals from industrial production, pesticides, and fertilizers were permitted to enter watersheds in states who did not regulate as harshly.
On August 30, Trump’s revision was rendered invalid after Judge Rosemary Márquez cited “fundamental, substantive flaws” that violated the 1972 Clean Water Act. Under the policy, over 300 projects nationwide were permitted to continue without environmental approval. Many of those projects were in Arizona, the state Judge Marquez is based in.
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