wetlands

U.S. House Dems want data on impact of Supreme Court ruling on wetlands protection

BY: - July 10, 2023

Top Democrats on the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee asked federal agencies Monday to track possible negative effects from a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited federal authority to regulate clean water. Washington’s Rick Larsen, the ranking Democrat on the committee, and Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee ranking member Grace Napolitano of California, […]

Half the nation’s wetlands just lost federal protection. Their fate is up to states.

BY: - June 20, 2023

States’ to-do lists just got a little longer: Decide how — or whether — to oversee building, planting and water quality in some wetland areas. Last month, a U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down federal protections for wetlands covering tens of millions of acres across the country, leaving no regulation of those areas in nearly half the […]

Bayou DeView in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, Arkansas (WM U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

UPDATED: U.S. Supreme Court rejects Biden wetlands regulation, ruling for Idaho couple

BY: - May 25, 2023

The U.S. Supreme Court in a major environmental decision Thursday overturned the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of wetlands that fall under the agency’s jurisdiction, siding with an Idaho couple who’d said they should not be required to obtain federal permits to build on their property that lacked any navigable water. All nine justices agreed to […]

Water tupelo near a walkway in Louisiana Purchase State Park near Brinkley, Arkansas. (Courtesy of Arkansas State Parks)

U.S. House votes to roll back Biden’s WOTUS rule

BY: - March 10, 2023

The U.S. House voted Thursday to undo a Biden administration definition of wetlands that allows for regulations on private lands. The chamber approved, 227-198, a resolution to roll back the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s broader definition of what qualifies as “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, for the purposes of federal regulation under the […]

A typical pen format for swine in many Iowa animal feeding operations. (File photo/Iowa Watch)

EPA permits cover only a third of concentrated animal feeding operations

BY: - November 22, 2022

The Environmental Protection Agency is charged with protecting important waterways from pollution, but manure from concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, continues to harm waterways — and only one-third of the largest facilities have a federal permit. EPA permits require CAFO operators to tell the agency how much waste the animals will produce and how […]

U.S. Supreme Court building. (Jim Small/Arizona Mirror)

U.S. Supreme Court mulls federal water rules, wetlands designations in Idaho case

BY: - October 4, 2022

The U.S. Supreme Court opened its term Monday with an Idaho case that could significantly restrict the federal government’s power to enforce clean water laws and prove crucial in determining wetland protections. The oral arguments came just months after the court’s 6-3 conservative majority limited executive authority to address climate change in a case involving […]

A new justice at the U.S. Supreme Court, and an Idaho wetlands case up first

BY: - September 30, 2022

When the U.S. Supreme Court opens its fall term on Monday, a few things will be different. A Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, will hear oral arguments for the first time ever. And the public will be allowed into the room for the first time since early 2020. The content of the term’s first […]