EPA proposes to limit states' ability to block oil and gas pipelines

The Trump administration is proposing to strip states and Tribes of their ability to block oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a proposed rule that would narrow the scope of the section of the Clean Water Act that allows states and Tribes to review federal permits for projects that have the potential to pollute waterways and to either approve, place conditions on, or reject those permits. 

Currently, states and Tribes may consider both direct water quality impacts of the project's proposed discharges and broader impacts of the project overall. States have used this authority to block projects that would have also increased air pollution or caused other environmental harms. For example, in 2017 the state of Washington used this authority to reject water quality permits for a coal export terminal which would have caused pollution of both water and air. The EPA's proposal would restrict states and Tribes to evaluating only the impacts of a project's proposed direct discharges into waters covered by the Clean Water Act. In addition to narrowing the scope of state and Tribal reviews, the proposal also reduces the number of waterways eligible for this review since the number of waters protected by the Clean Water Act was reduced significantly by a 2023 Supreme Court decision and follow-up efforts by the EPA.

"The list of environmental protections getting axed seems to grow longer every day," Hawk Hammer, national communications and media director for American Rivers, told the New York Times. "The bigger picture here is that polluters are getting free run of our nation’s waterways and the last time that happened, rivers caught on fire."

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Quote of the day

[Idaho's congressional delegation] sat stone faced, quiet and missing in action last year as the Trump administration slashed thousands of jobs and millions of budget dollars from the land management agencies—budgets already approved by Congress. So if there’s lack of land manager presence and action on Idaho’s public lands, [Idaho’s delegation] need only to look in the mirror for much of the reason.”

—Craig Gehrke, Idaho Capital Sun

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