We’re thrilled that President Biden has taken great strides to protect clean water for our aquatic ecosystems and drinking water, but we can’t celebrate yet.
John, the Trump administration’s hallmark environmental rollback is coming to an end.
To catch you up on the history: During his term, President Barack Obama clarified the definition of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to better protect the wetlands and streams that feed into our major waterways and drinking water supplies. This ensured strong protections for our drinking water and the natural habitats around these waterways.
Then: Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rolled back this federal water definition and went even further by radically reinterpreting decades-old Clean Water Act protections endorsed by both Democratic and Republican administrations, exposing our precious water resources to more pollution from developers, pipeline operators, fossil fuel companies, and more. Under this rule, EPA documents have estimated that up to 71 percent of the nation’s stream and river miles and 50 percent of our wetlands could lose clean water protections.
Now: The Biden administration took action this month to restore federal protections for hundreds of thousands of streams, wetlands, and other waterways, undoing the damage done by Trump.
We’re thrilled that President Biden has taken great strides to protect clean water for our aquatic ecosystems and drinking water, but we can’t celebrate yet.
We know that this conservative-dominated Supreme Court has been itching to roll back these environmental protections for a long time. They came so close to rolling back protections further under the Trump administration, but ran out of time. If given the opportunity now, they won’t hesitate to open our waterways to corporate pollution.
If this happens, we’ll only have one last shot to protect our waterways, by implementing immediate environmental legislation in Congress to solidify environmental safeguards for clean water.
Thanks to your help in 2020, SEEC PAC was able to re-elect over 95% of our pro-environment members to the U.S. House of Representatives — defying the odds on a night where Democrats lost seats. Now we are counting on you to help our SEEC members pass climate, clean energy and environmental justice policies in the 117th Congress while we undo the damage of the Trump Administration. But if you'd like to receive fewer emails, we understand. You can click here to only get our most important messages, or you can unsubscribe.
The Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition Political Action Committee (SEEC PAC) is an organization that supports members in the U.S. House of Representatives and candidates who fight for clean energy, climate change solutions, environmental justice, and protection of our nation’s clean air, water, wildlife, and public lands. Will you make a donation to our fight today?
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