Trump administration rolls back Obama clean water rule

The Trump administration unveiled a rewrite of an Obama-era clean water rule Thursday, setting a narrower definition for which waters are covered under federal protections.

The new rule, which will replace the Obama administration waters of the U.S., or WOTUS, rule, is meant to fulfill one of President Trump’s major energy and environmental priorities. Trump, in recent remarks to the American Farm Bureau, called the WOTUS rule “one of the most ridiculous regulations of all,” saying it “gave bureaucrats virtually unlimited authority to regulate stock tanks, drainage ditches, and isolated ponds as navigable waterways and navigable water.”