Democrats are objecting to a Trump administration plan to limit what states can do to protect water quality, describing the proposal as an affront to states’ rights that could create new permitting problems.
In a letter Wednesday to EPA officials, 11 Senate Democrats expressed “strong objection” to the agency’s draft rule restricting water quality reviews conducted by states and tribes.
Those reviews are required under the Clean Water Act for permitting of hydropower dams, pipelines and other energy projects. EPA’s proposal would make it harder for states to block projects or impose environmental conditions on them.
“By denying states’ and Tribes’ right to protect their waters and water quality, the proposed rule would eviscerate the Clean Water Act’s core principle of cooperative federalism,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Jess Kramer, the assistant administrator for water.
