Stockton, Calif. – The Trump Administration today took action to roll back sections of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, incurring the wrath of environmental justice advocates around the nation.
The proposed rules “fundamentally weaken” Section 401 of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act standards for particulate pollution, according to advocates. These are landmark environmental laws that have been in effect for many decades.
The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters. The basis of the CWA was enacted in 1948 and was called the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, but the Act was significantly reorganized and expanded in 1972.
The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the comprehensive federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary and mobile sources. Among other things, this law authorizes EPA to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and public welfare and to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants.
The proposed cutbacks in the regulation of water pollution couldn’t come at a worse time in California. The proposed rules were released just as latest California Department of Fish and Wildlife Midwater Trawl survey on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta reveals that zero Delta Smelt, an indicator species that once was the most abundant fish in the entire estuary, were found in the estuary for the eighth year in a row: www.dailykos.com/…
In addition, the populations of pelagic Delta fish species, including Longfin Smelt, Sacramento Splittail, Threadfin Shad and Striped Bass, have crashed to record low numbers in recent years.
In a statement, Restore the Delta characterized the rollbacks as “a direct assault on protections for vulnerable communities, decreasing oversight and regulation of pollutant discharges into our air and waterways.”
“Section 401 of the Clean Water Act has historically allowed tribes and states to review and potentially veto federal permits for energy projects that could discharge pollutants into waterways,” the group explained. “However, the proposed rollbacks would essentially remove the legal tools that environmental justice communities and advocates have used to protect culturally sensitive areas and communities already burdened by high pollution levels.”
“Simultaneously, the EPA’s rulemaking under the Clean Air Act removes the requirement to consider the economic cost of harm to human health from particulate matter and ozone, two pollutants known to have adverse effects on human health. Instead, the EPA’s approach focuses narrowly on the economic costs to industry, dismissing public health impacts as too “uncertain” to quantify,” RTD added.
“These rollbacks silence the voices of the very communities most affected by pollution”, said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director at Restore the Delta. “In places like Stockton and countless tribal communities across the country, residents already face elevated pollution levels. Stripping away these protections removes one of the last lines of defense against projects that threaten our health, water, and ways of life.”
Barrigan-Parrilla said the federal government’s actions pave the way for “environmentally devastating” projects, including large scale data centers and AI-related infrastructure that can permanently remove up to 80 percent of drawn water from local systems, as outlined in an upcoming report from Restore the Delta. Streamlining permitting for such projects without meaningful oversight risks severe and irreversible impacts to waterways, ecosystems, and surrounding communities.
“Taken together, these regulatory changes remove critical protections against pollution, further concentrate environmental harm in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, and strip away legal avenues to challenge projects that threaten clean air and water,” Barrigan-Parrilla concluded.
Restore the Delta is urging policymakers, community leaders, and the public to oppose these rollbacks and defend the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act as essential safeguards for public and environmental health.
GreenLatinos, a national non-profit organization, also slammed the cutbacks, noting that recent reporting shows that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to change how it evaluates air pollution rules. According to agency documents, the EPA would “stop including public health benefits in the analyses it uses when setting limits on air pollution and would instead only focus on the costs to companies.”
“For decades, the EPA has used scientific and public health data when developing clean air rules. These analyses document how changes in air pollution levels are associated with health outcomes such as asthma attacks, hospital visits, missed workdays, and premature deaths, particularly among children, older adults, and people with heart or lung disease,” the group wrote.
They said the planned change would apply to air pollution rules covering pollutants such as fine particulate matter and ozone that are produced by sources including power plants, vehicles, and industrial facilities. Latino communities and other frontline communities are more likely to live near these pollution sources and experience higher exposure to air pollution, according to federal and public health data, according to the group.
“Stripping health impacts out of air pollution rules is not a technical adjustment, it is a moral failure,” said Mark Magaña, GreenLatinos Founding President & CEO. “This EPA action puts corporate profits ahead of children’s lungs, elders’ hearts, and workers’ health. When agencies refuse to take into account asthma attacks, hospitalizations, and premature deaths, they are telling our communities, especially frontline communities living next to highways, refineries, and power plants, that our lives do not matter.”
