WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will seek to undo more than 30 regulations, including some aimed at lowering carbon emissions and curbing pollution, as well as redefining what waters and wetlands the federal government can regulate, Administrator Lee Zeldin said Wednesday.
The agency will take 31 actions covering a host of issues that amounted to “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history,” Zeldin said in a brief video posted to the EPA website Wednesday afternoon.
Zeldin framed the moves as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to encourage energy production and cut regulations focused on slowing climate change.
“Today, the green new scam ends as the EPA does its part to usher in the golden age of American success,” Zeldin said.
‘A despicable betrayal’
Democrats and environmental groups criticized the moves, especially the reconsideration of a 2009 agency finding that greenhouse gas emissions harm human health and safety.
The finding has been the basis for regulations targeting climate pollution, and Zeldin said that “all actions that rely on” the finding would also be reconsidered.
“This is a despicable betrayal of the American people,” New Jersey U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement. “President Trump and his EPA Administrator are now pretending that climate pollution does not endanger human health or the environment – not because there is any scientific justification, but because it helps line the pockets of their billionaire corporate polluter friends.”
Legal challenges promised
Pallone said he would fight the Trump administration’s endangerment finding reversal, which he called “unlawful and unjustified.”
The environmental group the Center for Biological Diversity also pledged to take the agency to court over the move and predicted it would not withstand a legal challenge.
“The Trump administration’s ignorance is trumped only by its malice toward the planet,” Jason Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. “This move won’t stand up in court. We’re going to fight it every step of the way.”
Other actions announced Wednesday include revising mercury and toxic pollutant standards that the EPA said targeted coal plants, changing emissions standards for cars and trucks that some Republicans have said equate to an electric vehicle mandate and terminating the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
The announcement came a day after Zeldin canceled $20 billion in grants for sustainable energy projects.
Waters of the United States
Not included in the 31-action package was a separate announcement Wednesday that the EPA will write a new rule to revise a long-disputed definition of what waters can be regulated by the federal government.
The agency will work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to establish a new definition of “waters of the United States,” the term for what the EPA and other federal agencies can regulate under the Clean Water Act, that complies with a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the broad definition the Biden administration had employed.
The first Trump administration considerably narrowed the scope of federal oversight of non-navigable waters, part of a decades-long battle over the reach of the Clean Water Act.
The new definition will be drafted to lower permitting costs and regulatory burdens on farmers, builders and landowners, the agency release said.
“The previous Administration’s definition of ‘waters of the United States’ placed unfair burdens on the American people and drove up the cost of doing business,” Zeldin said. “Our goal is to protect America’s water resources consistent with the law of the land while empowering American farmers, landowners, entrepreneurs, and families to help Power the Great American Comeback.”
In the 2023 case that arose from Idaho landowners who objected to federal permitting requirements to build on their own property, the Supreme Court ruled that waters must have a “continuous surface connection” to navigable waters to fall under federal jurisdiction.
The EPA under Democratic presidents had used broader definitions that included waterways and wetlands if they had connection to larger navigable waters.
Battle over regs renews
Reaction to the announcement Wednesday fell along the partisan and special interest lines that have defined the conflict for years, with Democrats and environmental groups calling for stronger protections and Republicans and industry groups praising a new approach.
Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said a new definition would eliminate “ambiguity and unnecessary burdens for landowners” while aligning with the court decision.
“I commend EPA and USACE for taking this first step to carefully provide the clarity landowners, farmers, businesses, and local governments have been asking for by refining the scope of WOTUS without excessive overreach,” she said in a statement. “This action ensures that only wetlands with a true, continuous connection to jurisdictional waters fall under federal oversight.”
Jim Murphy, the director of legal advocacy at the environmental group National Wildlife Federation, said the action would further push responsibility for water regulation to states and local governments, especially as the EPA cuts its staff as part of a government-wide effort by the Trump administration to shrink the federal workforce.
The “Supreme Court decision greatly narrowed the scope of streams and wetlands that can be protected by the law and that narrowing is already reflected in the current rule,” Murphy wrote in a statement. “With the likelihood of a skeletal workforce at EPA, this move will put even more pressure and expense on states and localities to ensure our water is safe.”
This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.
