EPA chief Pruitt declares war on America’s clean water

At a congressional hearing, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the Trump administration is proposing to repeal the Clean Water Rule. After more than a decade of extensive legal debate, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the rule in 2015 to clarify that tens of millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of streams across the United States are legally protected under the Clean Water Act. Naturally, corporate polluters, developers, and golf course owners were unhappy with the rule and have sought help from the Trump administration to overturn those federal protections. By moving to rescind the rule, Pruitt is delivering on the administration’s threat to strip federal protections for the streams that feed into drinking water sources for one in three—roughly 117 million—Americans.