Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt Wednesday proposed limiting his agency’s authority over dumping waste into waterways.
For the last 40 years, the Clean Water Act has allowed the EPA to reject approvals issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to discharge waste into waterways. The EPA can use its veto authority retroactively or before a company applies for a permit from the Army Corps to dump excavated land and waste into waterways, for projects such as mines and real estate development.
Pruitt and other top EPA officials argue that practice discourages economic development.
“We need to set the parameters of what our power and authority are,” EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “Part of the criticism of the agency in the past has been the agency continues to encroach on power and authority over the states, over other agencies, and we need to set more parameters on what we will do and not do going into the future.”
Environmental groups criticized the EPA’s move, calling it dangerous.
The EPA is “giving up 40-year-old authority to uphold [and] enforce the Clean Water Act to safeguard drinking water for all Americans,” said John Walke, the clean air director of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The agency has used the authority to block or restrict development only 13 times in its history, the Wall Street Journal reported, but Pruitt contends it is vulnerable to abuse. Most recently, the Obama administration used the power to deny a permit for a proposed gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, known as Pebble Mine. The watershed near the mine generates nearly half of the world’s wild salmon.
Pruitt mentioned the case specifically in his memo, and the developers of the project have lobbied the EPA to limit its authority over permits.
But Pruitt in January issued a surprise announcement that the proposed mine would harm the area’s natural resources. Pruitt’s decision did not cancel the mine outright, but it left in place the Obama administration’s block of the project until the EPA could solicit further comments.
Last month, the main investor in Pebble Mine, First Quantum Minerals, pulled out of the project, leaving its fate in doubt.
Wheeler would not say whether Wednesday’s action would stop the EPA from halting the Pebble Mine project again, as the developers make another effort to obtain federal permits.
“I am not sure where the Pebble Mine process is as of today,” Wheeler said. “This certainly would stop EPA from doing actions like this in the future on other permits.”
Pruitt’s new proposal is subject to a public comment period before being finalized.
