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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Arizona Joins Clean Water Rule Lawsuit

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Wednesday, July 1, 2015   

PHOENIX - Arizona is among 13 states suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the updated Clean Water Rule. The suit filed this week claims the rule amounts to a power grab by the federal government, seeking greater control over state and local waters.

At the Center for Biological Diversity endangered species policy director Brett Hartl says his group is concerned the updated Clean Water Rule actually removes protections for some waterways and he's concerned the states are trying to further diminish the rule.

"They might be saying this is a huge overreach, but I have a feeling that behind closed doors they're probably, I think, fairly happy with what the final rule looked like but they're going to keep going, because once you smell blood in the water, you don't stop," says Hartl.

Supporters, including sportsmen's groups, say the Clean Water Rule needed the updates, and that it restores protections for headwaters, some streams and wetland habitat left uncertain after two U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

Hartl says previously, protections for wetlands were considered on a case-by-case basis, irrespective of location. He says the new rule mandates that wetlands be within 4,000 feet of a river or a stream to qualify for federal protections.

"In the old system, there was a chance to protect something that was more than 4,000 feet away from a stream - now there isn't. The old system at least had the possibility to protect wetlands, and the new system doesn't," says Hartl.

The other states involved in the litigation are Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.


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