Chuck Darwin on Nostr: The Supreme Court made the situation worse—but we haven’t given up In May 2023, a ...
The Supreme Court made the situation worse—but we haven’t given up
In May 2023, a slim majority of the Supreme Court held, in
Sackett v. EPA,
that wetlands are only protected by the law in a narrow set of circumstances.
The decision also questioned the law’s applicability to many non-perennial streams.
As NRDC has previously written, the ruling was an unscientific policymaking power grab that’s going to lead to the loss of countless water bodies that provide huge benefits to communities and the environment,
including flood control, pollution filtration, species habitat, and carbon mitigation.
As wrongheaded and dispiriting as the decision was, those of us who care about clean water and about the functions that healthy freshwater ecosystems provide have not given up.
We’re hard at work to implement a long-term strategy that relies on three principal components:
(1) ensuring that—wherever possible and consistent with their legal authority—federal agencies with the power to protect, or prevent harm to, wetlands, and other critical waters fully use that power;
(2) securing strengthened protections at the state, local, and Tribal levels to fill some of the gap created by the Court’s decision, as Colorado did earlier this year; and
(3) working with leaders in Congress to restore comprehensive protections in the federal Clean Water Act.
Looking at the first prong of that strategy, federal administrative action,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
is one of the most important agencies with authority to help prevent the loss of aquatic resources no longer protected by the Clean Water Act.
FEMA has already taken one important step in this direction and could—and should!—do even more.
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/jon-devine/new-ways-protect-water-after-supreme-court-disaster
In May 2023, a slim majority of the Supreme Court held, in
Sackett v. EPA,
that wetlands are only protected by the law in a narrow set of circumstances.
The decision also questioned the law’s applicability to many non-perennial streams.
As NRDC has previously written, the ruling was an unscientific policymaking power grab that’s going to lead to the loss of countless water bodies that provide huge benefits to communities and the environment,
including flood control, pollution filtration, species habitat, and carbon mitigation.
As wrongheaded and dispiriting as the decision was, those of us who care about clean water and about the functions that healthy freshwater ecosystems provide have not given up.
We’re hard at work to implement a long-term strategy that relies on three principal components:
(1) ensuring that—wherever possible and consistent with their legal authority—federal agencies with the power to protect, or prevent harm to, wetlands, and other critical waters fully use that power;
(2) securing strengthened protections at the state, local, and Tribal levels to fill some of the gap created by the Court’s decision, as Colorado did earlier this year; and
(3) working with leaders in Congress to restore comprehensive protections in the federal Clean Water Act.
Looking at the first prong of that strategy, federal administrative action,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
is one of the most important agencies with authority to help prevent the loss of aquatic resources no longer protected by the Clean Water Act.
FEMA has already taken one important step in this direction and could—and should!—do even more.
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/jon-devine/new-ways-protect-water-after-supreme-court-disaster