Our policy piece tackles a pressing environmental issue: water protection. We examine the science and the law behind the recently finalized Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which removes protections for millions of miles of streams and acres of wetlands in the US. These streams and wetlands are vital ecosystems that both directly and indirectly provide a range of ecosystem services, including providing drinking water, reducing floods, and generating billions of dollars to the US economy. This new rule is based on questionable legal choices and is highly inconsistent with the best available science on water and watersheds, and in particular on how connections between waters are critical for their function. The result: a major rollback in environmental protections that has the potential to cause widespread and long-lasting harm to US waters.
For access to the full article, please see the Publications page.
See below for some of the media coverage on this: