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Opinion: Whose Water is Being Carried By Trump’s Latest Environmental Rollback?

When a Healdsburg winery leaked thousands of gallons of Cabernet into the Russian River last week, the jokes flowed, too. It was noted that the Russian was red, that water turned to wine, and that red wine doesn’t go with fish. But the spill coincided with a more sobering blow to clean water, coming to light the day the Trump administration announced it was ripping up expanded protections for streams, wetlands, and groundwater adopted by the Obama administration. And the revision goes beyond rolling back Obama-era policy to undo longer-standing protections under the Clean Water Act, which became law with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1972.

Trump Administration To Finalize Rollback Of Obama’s Clean Water Protections

The Trump administration plans to revoke an Obama-era regulation that provided federal protection to many U.S. wetlands and streams, according to two Environmental Protection Agency officials with knowledge of the plan.

The rule defined which waterways are subject to federal regulation. The administration plans to replace it with its own version, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Water Interests Are fighting California’s Bid To Block Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks

California is close to adopting strict Obama-era federal environmental and worker safety rules that the Trump administration is dismantling. But as the legislative session draws to a close, the proposal faces fierce opposition from the state’s largest water agencies.
To shield California from Trump administration policies, lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow state agencies to lock in protections under the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and other bulwark environmental and labor laws that were in place before President Trump took office in January 2017.