When it comes to a controversial proposed copper and gold mine near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, the Environmental Protection Agency long has insisted that it is assessing, not regulating. At least not yet.

The EPA has repeatedly said it has no plan to pre-emptively veto the mine proposal via a regulatory hydrogen bomb at its disposal in the Clean Water Act — certainly not while the agency is working over its much-disputed assessment of a theoretical large-scale mine’s impact on the Bristol Bay Watershed.