Removing Pollution Controls on Streams and Wetlands. How can this possibly be a victory for farmers?

How can this possibly be a victory for farmers? Fossil fuel producers and real estate developers, like Trump, yes, but FARMERS?
Credit...
Jim Brandenburg/Minden Pictures

By Coral Davenport
Published Jan. 22, 2020 Updated Jan. 23, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration (January 23, 2020) finalized a rule to strip away environmental protections for streams, wetlands, and other water bodies, handing a victory to farmers, fossil fuel producers and real estate developers who said Obama-era rules had shackled them with onerous and unnecessary burdens.

From Day 1 of his administration, President Trump vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s “Waters of the United States” regulation, which had frustrated rural landowners. His new rule, which will be implemented in the coming weeks, is the latest step in the Trump administration’s push to repeal or weaken nearly 100 environmental rules and laws, loosening or eliminating rules on climate change, clean air, chemical pollution, coal mining, oil drilling, and endangered species protections.

WHO BENEFITS?

“That was a rule that basically took your property away from you,” added Mr. Trump, whose real estate holdings include more than a dozen golf courses. (Golf course developers were among the key opponents of the Obama rule and key backers of the new one.) Really . . . 

“This will be the biggest loss of clean water protection the country has ever seen,” said Blan Holman, a lawyer specializing in federal water policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This puts drinking water for millions of Americans at risk of contamination from unregulated pollution. This is not just undoing the Obama rule. This is stripping away protections that were put in place in the ’70s and ’80s that Americans have relied on for their health.”

That could open millions of acres of pristine wetlands to pollution or destruction, and allow chemicals and other pollutants to be discharged into smaller headland waters that eventually drain into larger water bodies, experts in water management said. Wetlands play key roles in filtering surface water and protecting against floods, while also providing wildlife habitat.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE:  New York Times, January 23, 2020




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