Trump Administration Takes Another Swing at Dismantling Clean Water Protections

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today proposed a rule that would strip Clean Water Act protections from the vast majority of the country’s wetlands and streams. The proposal would generally protect only waters that flow every day of the year and wetlands that are permanently flooded.

NRDC performed GIS analysis of a variety of scenarios the Trump administration has considered. Our research reveals that this proposal would put at least 94 percent of wetlands in the continental United States at risk of pollution or destruction. The proposal also targets millions of miles of streams that do not flow year-round, which make up about 79 percent of the streams in the continental United States. These rollbacks go significantly farther in weakening the Clean Water Act than the Supreme Court’s infamous Sackett v EPA decision three years ago.

Following is a statement from Jon Devine, director of freshwater ecosystems at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“What the Supreme Court did in its Sackett decision was an inexcusable assault on clean water. Communities and wildlife will pay the price until Congress fixes it. The Trump administration's answer has been to make a bad situation worse.

“This proposal declares open season on the nation’s waterways. It denies federal protection to virtually all wetlands and more than three quarters of our streams, endangering drinking water supplies and flood-prone communities – and the agencies admit it themselves. The proposal would virtually eliminate protection for freshwater wetlands. Their own analysis says most streams would lose protection, with the West hit hardest.”

Background:

This is the Trump administration’s second attempt at weakening the Clean Water Act. In November 2025, EPA and the Corps proposed to narrow the definition of which wetlands and streams are protected under the Clean Water Act, and their proposal drew broad opposition. NRDC experts believe the new supplemental proposal is even worse. It would protect only "perennial" waters that flow every day of the year under ordinary conditions, allowing a single interruption of no more than 30 consecutive days annually. Wetlands would be protected only where perennial surface water continuously connects them to a protected water body, and only the portion of the wetland “indistinguishable” from that water would remain covered.

The public will have only 30 days to comment once the rule is published in the Federal Register.