EPA Creates New Team To Bolster Controversial Wetlands Permit Program

摘要

EPA's wetlands office has established a new "Watershed Assessment and Rapid Response Team" to aid its wetlands regulatory program at a time when the program is struggling to respond to new challenges such as climate change, faces diminishing budgets and is under fire for using its Clean Water Act (CWA) authority to block projects. According to Russell Kaiser, chief of EPA's wetlands and aquatic resources regulatory branch (WARRB), the new team is responsible for several high-profile policy issues, including conducting watershed assessments, such as the pending study of proposed mining activities in Bristol Bay, AK, suggesting EPA may seek to conduct similar studies in other watersheds in the future as environmentalists have sought.