skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

New Trump Water Rules Set Back Chesapeake Bay Cleanup

play audio
Play

Tuesday, January 28, 2020   

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Trump administration announced last week that it will remove millions of miles of streams and roughly half the country's wetlands from federal protection.

The move will significantly set back the cleanup efforts of Chesapeake Bay, according to Jonathan Gendzier, staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. He pointed out the change allows landowners to dump pesticides into waterways for the first time since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972.

"Elimination of federal protections for those wetlands in Virginia and other Chesapeake Bay states really puts at risk the progress that we've made in cleaning up the bay and could place an unfair burden on Virginia as well," Gendzier said.

The Environmental Protection Agency also said Monday it will not force Pennsylvania to abide by a regional anti-pollution program for the bay adopted under the Obama administration. Farmers, the fossil-fuel industry and homebuilders have cheered Trump's new water rule, saying it will relieve them of having to follow tough regulations that interfere with production.

But environmental groups say Trump's rollback takes away clean-water protections that have helped clean endangered waters such as Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi River for almost 50 years. Trump's move also loosens regulations on groundwater pollution, which could lead to more contaminated drinking water, Gendzier said.

He said it's significant that the announcement of the new rule took place at a homebuilder's convention in Las Vegas.

"This rule really is not serving the interests of ordinary people, families and communities in Virginia and around the nation, it really serves industrial interests and industries like homebuilders as well as developers," Gendzier said.

Almost half of the U.S. population depends on groundwater for drinking water, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Several state attorneys general are expected to join with scientists and environmental groups, including the Southern Environmental Law Center, to sue to overturn Trump's water rule.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021