The Environmental Protection Agency removed federal protections for a majority of the country’s wetlands on Tuesday to comply with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Here’s the actual SCOTUS decision for anyone interested: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
As far as I can tell, they’re basically altering jurisdictional protections of certain bodies of water under the 1972 Clean Water Act. It was said before that wetlands were federally protected as long as the wetlands had a continuous surface connection to a stream, river, lake, or ocean (aka an ecologically significant nexus), and were therefore considered “Waters of the United States” under federal protection through the EPA. As it sits now, it seems that states are responsible for determining how to protect a body of water that doesn’t fall under the federal classification.
This all started because so yahoo in Idaho bought land to build a house, and started filling dirt in the wetlands but was stopped by the EPA. He argued that no, it’s his property, and the waters aren’t protected. SCOTUS agreed with yahoo. This ain’t good.
Mark my words, some supposedly far-left groups with ulterior motives are going to use this news to supposedly prove that Biden and the Democrats are anti-environment even though this has nothing to do with him and rather everything to do with our right-wing Supreme Court.
There have been a lot of Anti-Biden and anti-Democrat posts lately coming from the Left, and nearly all of them are misinformation campaigns from Republican or Russian sponsored groups trying to cause confusion and apathy going into the upcoming 2024 elections.
Also this is just one of an endless stream of awful Supreme Court rulings that all could have been avoided if only people got off their asses 6 years ago and went out to vote.
I voted but I’m pretty sure no one thought it was going to be as bad as it was. I agree with you, which is why I posted this as something the SCOTUS did before it got posted from the right wing.
Awesome, fuck this shit. Scotus shouldn’t be allowed to do this
At this point before they fucking rule on anything they should be forced to prove they’re not compromised or getting money from the involved parties. Looking at you Clarence Thomas you corrupt piece of human shit.
By “removing” I presume this means they changed the definition…just read; yes. The definition has been changed from being near streams, oceans, rivers and lakes to those with direct connects to the aforementioned. If we had a competent congress this could be fixed last April. But we don’t. So clean water regs don’t apply to anything that is near-but-not-touching those waterways.
It’s only going to keep getting worse. Are we ever as a people going to get together and stop these people in power who are selling our planet off for short term profits. When will people get angry enough. I know I am. So what do we do?
Time for congress to take up this critical issue…oh wait…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The EPA and Department of the Army announced a final rule amending the definition of protected “waters of the United States” in light of the decision in Sackett v. EPA in May, which narrowed the scope of the Clean Water Act and the agency’s power to regulate waterways and wetlands.
Developers and environmental groups have for decades argued about the scope of the 1972 Clean Water Act in protecting waterways and wetlands.
The EPA’s new rule “removes the significant nexus test from consideration when identifying tributaries and other waters as federally protected,” the agency said.
Writing the court’s decision, he said the law includes only streams, oceans, rivers and lakes, and wetlands with a “continuous surface connection to those bodies.”
Courtney Briggs, chair of the Waters Advocacy Coalition, said federal agencies “have chosen to ignore” the limits of their jurisdictional reach.
“This revised rule does not adequately comply with Supreme Court precedent and with the limits on regulatory jurisdiction set forth in the Clean Water Act,” she said in a statement.
The original article contains 521 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 67%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
They should be forced to change their name.
