EPA Water Chief Revised CWA Rule Repeal To Bolster Its Legal Basis

摘要

EPA water chief David Ross ordered revisions to the proposed repeal of the Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule in order to bolster the proposal's legal basis in expected litigation, an agency staffer says, giving Ross the chance to "fix" legal flaws in the original proposal which EPA issued before he joined the agency.EPA April 11 submitted a new CWA repeal proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for pre-proposal review.But according to an email relayed to Inside EPA through the whistleblower group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, "Almost none of the staff knew about this" prior to its submission to OMB."I think Dave Ross wrote much of it himself. He's apparently been saying that he thought there were legal deficiencies to the Step 1 proposal, and he wanted them fixed so that when we finalize that rule it will have a greater chance of surviving litigation," the letter says. EPA is pursuing a two-step plan to first repeal the 2015 CWA rule and second craft a new jurisdiction rule expected to be much narrower in scope.