The Environmental Protection Agency revoked two regulations last month dealing with clean water and air that present conflicting positions from the Trump Administration over the role states should play in protecting their own natural resources.
The first came in the removal of an Obama-era rule that sought to protect streams, lakes, wetlands and other bodies of water from pollution, a move state officials say threatens the Chesapeake Bay.
"(The Trump Administration's) determination to weaken the Clean Water Act threatens to undo our hard-won progress cleaning up (waterways) in Maryland and across the nation," Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said in a statement. "We plan to vigorously challenge this latest unlawful rollback."
The 2015 Clean Water Rule expanded the definition of "navigable" bodies of water that fall under federal jurisdiction. It was a decision that Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler called "an egregious power grab" at a Sept. 12 press conference announcing the repeal.
"Expanded the definition of "navigable" bodies of water that fall under federal jurisdiction" in this case means nuked the definition from space, carpet bombed the rubble, and sewed the field with dioxin. The EPA under Obama expanded the definition of navigable waters to included temporarily wet spots that the EPA wanted to control in the future. They just didn't report it that way.
Frosh subsequently joined 25 other attorneys general in a lawsuit challenging the administration, arguing that the new regulation "fails to respect states' authority to protect public health and welfare."
Wheeler said at a press conference that the administration would be moving forward with a new national fuel economy and greenhouse emission standard for cars.
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