EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Senate appropriators that he plans to take quick action on a host of issues from Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction and climate rollbacks to new limits on drinking water contaminants and other chemicals, including setting an aggressive goal of enacting new CWA and power plant climate rules in 2018. During a May 16 hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's interior and environment panel, Pruitt said of the repeal and replacement effort for the Clean Power Plan rule governing existing power plants' greenhouse gas emissions that "we anticipate that occurring in 2018 - all that occurring in 2018." He said the same timeline applies to replacing the Obama-era rule on the CWA's scope, with final action on its repeal targeted for summer and replacement before 2019. The administrator stood behind those projections even though both rulemakings will require the agency to finish work on a new proposal for a highly visible, contentious subject, take comment on it, and then craft a final rule that considers those comments.
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