SACRAMENTO, California — A California state lawmaker introduced legislation Thursday to enshrine federal water quality rules in state law following President Donald Trump’s inauguration and a 2023 Supreme Court decision rolling back wetlands protections.
State Sen. Ben Allen’s (D) SB 601 would significantly boost the State Water Resources Control Board’s authority to adopt and enforce water rules at least as stringent as the federal rules at a time when Trump has promised to roll back regulations.
“The challenges presented by ever-changing federal policy requires California to step up and fill the void that is left when priorities become misaligned,” said Allen in a press release.
The proposal is partly meant to shore up state law to supplant weakened federal protections following the Supreme Court’s 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision, which changed the definition of federal wetlands to remove at least half of the approximately 110 million acres of wetlands in the continental U.S. from federal oversight under the Clean Water Act.
