The Trump administration's Navigable Waters Protection Rule was sloppy, and it would have done "serious environmental harm," according to a recent court ruling.
"A federal judge Monday threw out a major Trump administration rule that scaled back federal protections for streams, marshes and wetlands across the United States," report Dino Grandoni and Brady Dennis.
"U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez wrote that Trump officials committed serious errors while writing the regulation, finalized last year, and that leaving it in place could lead to 'serious environmental harm,'" according to the article.
Planetizen shared news of the Trump administration's final breakthrough on the Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS for short, in January 2020. The Obama administration approved the rule in 2015, after years of controversy, but needed until 2018 (well into the tenure of the Trump administration) to clear the courts. The Trump administration's version of the WOTUS was called the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.
More coverage of the court decision is available from Reuters, The New York Times, and E&E News.
The court's decision mitigates some of the environmental effects of the Trump administration's time in office, quantified in research published in September 2020.
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
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Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research