A federal judge has reversed a Trump-era rule that allowed pollution in streams, wetlands, and marshes across the country without environmental permitting. The rule limited federal restrictions on the release of fertilizers, pesticides, and chemicals into smaller bodies of water, and allowed more than 300 projects to move forward without permits or regulations.
Judge Rosemary Márquez of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona found ‘fundamental, substantive flaws’ with the policy and that it contradicted the 1972 Clean Water Act, as reported by the New York Times. The Trump policy repealed and replaced an Obama-era policy protecting more than 60% of U.S. waterways by narrowing definitions of which waters were federally protected. This removed regulations for more than half of the nation’s wetlands and hundreds of thousands of miles of streams.
A spokesman for the EPA declined to comment to the New York Times but said that the agency was reviewing the ruling.
