Here are some of tonight’s stories:
- Texas enacts one of nation’s most restrictive abortion laws and other states plan to follow.
- Caldor fire blows past 200,000 acres in California and is headed toward Nevada.
- Conservatives, backed by millions, are targeting local school board elections.
- Conservatives plan to rally at U.S. Capitol on September 18.
- 50th conservative pleads guilty as Justice Department approaches 600th arrest in January 6 insurrection.
- Conservatives praise of the Taliban takeover, raising alarm.
- Brazil warns of energy crisis with record drought.
- Up to half the wild tree species in the world at risk of extinction due to climate change.
- UN report states weather disasters have increased fivefold and will get worse.
- Sacklers get immunity and keep billions in judge approved Purdue Pharma opioids agreement.
Details and links to sources below the fold.
This is an open thread. Everyone is encouraged to share articles, stories, and tweets in your comments.
641,094 PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS IN THE U.S. 205 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. HAVE RECEIVED A VACCINATION DOSE
Los Angeles Times
Caldor fire blows past 200,000 acres as it moves toward Nevada; crews grow fatigued
Wildfire crews faced yet another grueling day Wednesday as the massive Caldor fire blew past 200,000 acres and continued its steady march east toward Nevada.
The head of the fire is now approaching the California-Nevada state line, spurring concerns that it could involve both states. Firefighters made an all-out effort Tuesday to defend the Lake Tahoe Basin and were able to protect many of the homes in Christmas Valley and Meyers, while also herding the flames into areas south of the popular resort city of South Lake Tahoe.
“We’re fortunate the fire did not make as strong a push into Tahoe as it did the previous day,” Tim Ernst, operations section chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said during a Wednesday morning briefing.
Who’s voted so far in the California recall? Lots of Democrats, few young people
With the recall election less than two weeks away, the mail ballot returns so far show that more than twice as many Democrats have voted than Republicans and that liberal areas of the state such as the Bay Area have the highest rates of return, according to state officials and political data researchers.
The early numbers provide good news for Gov. Gavin Newsom. But they also show his weaknesses and what his campaign must do between now and election day on Sept. 14 — turn out young and Latino voters — key parts of the coalition he needs to stay in office but notoriously difficult populations to mobilize in nonpresidential elections.
“If I am the Newsom campaign, I have to feel good about these numbers, but I think it’s a big mistake for them to be overly optimistic,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc. “The remaining task ahead has to look steep — you’re starting to look at voters who are really challenging to turn out…. And if this represents Republicans holding onto their ballots and waiting to vote at the polls, then we can be in for some real shifting in numbers.”
Dallas Morning News
Texas enacts one of nation’s most restrictive abortion laws
Starting Wednesday, Texas will have one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, banning abortions at approximately six weeks — before many women know they are pregnant.
Senate Bill 8 was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on May 19. Also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, the law will go into effect despite months of legal wrangling, including an emergency request Monday to the Supreme Court to halt its implementation.
The new law restricts abortions after doctors can detect a heartbeat in an unborn fetus. But the law is not enforced by the state but rather through private lawsuits. Anyone who aids or abets an abortion after the fetal heartbeat can be detected can be sued for up to $10,000 plus legal fees.
The private suit provision has made it difficult for abortion rights advocates to oppose the law in the courts since the state is not the enforcer.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia abortion activists on notice after Supreme Court allows Texas law to take effect
With the U.S. Supreme Court allowing a restrictive Texas abortion law to go into effect Wednesday, Georgia advocates on both sides of the issue are trying to determine what it could mean when arguments begin over the state’s similar law later this month in a federal appeals court.
Texas abortion providers asked the nation’s high court to temporarily block the law, which prohibits the procedure once fetal cardiac activity can be detected — usually about six weeks into a pregnancy and before many women know they’re pregnant. The court still could grant the request, but Texas providers have now stopped performing abortions if fetal cardiac activity is detected.
Texas’ law also allows private citizens to sue anyone involved in facilitating abortions. For example, that would include anyone who drives a woman to a clinic to get an abortion. Under the law, anyone who successfully sues another person in that situation would be entitled to at least $10,000.
NBC News
15 million Covid vaccine doses thrown away in the U.S. since March, new data shows
Pharmacies and state governments in the United States have thrown away at least 15.1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines since March 1, according to government data obtained by NBC News — a far larger number than previously known and still probably an undercount.
Four national pharmacy chains reported more than 1 million wasted doses each, according to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to a public records request. Walgreens reported the most waste of any pharmacy, state or other vaccine provider, with nearly 2.6 million wasted doses. CVS reported 2.3 million wasted doses, while Walmart reported 1.6 million and Rite Aid reported 1.1 million.
The data released by the CDC is self-reported by pharmacies, states and other vaccine providers. It is not comprehensive — missing some states and federal providers — and it does not include the reason doses had to be thrown away.
The Charlotte Observer
NC legislature passes anti-Critical Race Theory bill
The national discussion over teaching about race in schools has also spent the summer in North Carolina, as the state legislature debated bills from both the House and Senate that would outlaw teaching Critical Race Theory.
The latest version of House Bill 324 was in the House chamber Wednesday for a final vote after passing the Senate.
Several House Democrats called the bill dangerous and insulting, but the House passed the bill 60-41.
It now goes to the desk of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Given the party lines the votes fell on, he is unlikely to sign it into law, and Republicans do not hold the supermajorities required for veto overrides.
The Philadelphia Inquirer
For the first time, Pennsylvania Senate gives public online access to spending records
The Pennsylvania Senate for the first time is giving the public online access to the way the chamber and its elected members spend millions in taxpayer money on themselves. Though a win for taxpayers, the information provided online is not searchable or easy to analyze.
Reports that show all 50 senators’ spending for the month of July were posted to the Senate’s website Wednesday morning, alongside spending information for the chief clerk and secretary. That information will be updated monthly going forward.
Though a first for the legislature, and a win for taxpayers, the information provided online still does not give the public the full picture of the chamber’s spending.
The New Orleans Advocate
Yelling, long lines at gas stations as New Orleans remains without power, sufficient fuel
Tempers flared Tuesday morning as limited fuel for cars and generators in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida forced droves of New Orleanians to the city's few operating gas stations.
At a Shell station on South Claiborne and Washington avenues in Central City, where cars were lined up and crowds formed around gas pumps, some residents were filling up multiple gas cans, and there were complaints some had cut in line.
A handful of New Orleans police officers to tried to defuse the tension. It didn’t appear anyone was arrested. The NOPD had no comment on the incident. By the French Quarter, a line to the Chevron on Rampart Street stretched for three blocks down Basin Street.
AP News
Tea party 2.0? Conservatives get organized in school battles
A loose network of conservative groups with ties to major Republican donors and party-aligned think tanks is quietly lending firepower to local activists engaged in culture war fights in schools across the country.
While they are drawn by the anger of parents opposed to school policies on racial history or COVID-19 protocols like mask mandates, the groups are often run by political operatives and lawyers standing ready to amplify local disputes.
In a wealthy Milwaukee suburb, a law firm heavily financed by a conservative foundation that has fought climate change mitigation and that has ties to … Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election helped parents seeking to recall Mequon-Thiensville school board members, chiefly over the board’s hiring of a diversity consultant. A new national advocacy group, Parents Defending Education, promoted the Wisconsin parents’ tactics as a model.
Intel shows extremists to attend September 18 Capitol rally
Far right extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are planning to attend a rally later this month at the U.S. Capitol that is designed to demand “justice” for the hundreds of people who have been charged in connection with January’s insurrection, according to three people familiar with intelligence gathered by federal officials.
As a result, U.S. Capitol Police have been discussing in recent weeks whether the large perimeter fence that was erected outside the Capitol after January’s riot will need to be put back up, the people said.
The officials have been discussing security plans that involve reconstructing the fence as well as another plan that does not involve a fence, the people said. They were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The Oregonian
Police ask assault victims, journalists for help after no-showing at Portland political protests
Detectives are asking assault victims and independent journalists to help them identify six people suspected of committing crimes during a day of violent political skirmishes in which Portland police declined to intervene.
Police on Wednesday released photo compilations of six people suspected of committing crimes Aug. 22 but who haven’t been identified. The suspects, most shown wearing full-face coverings and protective gear, were photographed in Northeast Portland’s Parkrose neighborhood, where far-right protesters and counter-protesters engaged in a roving brawl that ended with gunfire downtown.
In a statement Wednesday, detectives urged people who were assaulted that day to report the attacks to police, and the bureau asked independent journalists who captured photos and videos for their unedited footage.
The requests drew more scrutiny to the bureau, which was already facing criticism for its hands-off approach to the day’s events.
CNN
The Justice Department on Wednesday secured its 50th guilty plea in the January 6 insurrection, a key milestone as it nears its 600th arrest in the massive investigation.
In the eight months since the attack on the US Capitol, the investigation has ballooned into a nationwide manhunt for the Trump supporters and right-wing extremists who stormed the building and grounds, assaulted dozens of police officers and temporarily halted the certification of President Joe Biden's victory.
Nearly 600 people from 44 states and Washington, DC, have been charged in federal court, according to CNN's latest tally, with authorities announcing new arrests on a near-daily basis.
White supremacist praise of the Taliban takeover concerns US officials
As the United States-backed government in Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and US troops raced to leave the country, White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for what the Taliban accomplished, a worrying development for US officials who have been grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism.
That praise has also been coupled with a wave of anti-refugee sentiment from far-right groups, as the US and others rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan by the Biden administration's August 31 deadline.
Several concerning trends have emerged in recent weeks on online platforms commonly used by anti-government, White supremacist and other domestic violent extremist groups, including "framing the activities of the Taliban as a success," and a model for those who believe in the need for a civil war in the US, the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, John Cohen, said on a call Friday with local and state law enforcement, obtained by CNN.
McConnell: 'There isn't going to be an impeachment' of Biden
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that "there isn't going to be an impeachment" of President Joe Biden over the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, noting that Democrats control the House and Senate.
"I think the way these behaviors get adjusted in this country is at the ballot box," said McConnell at an event in Pikeville, Kentucky. "The President is not going to be removed from office with a Democratic House and a narrowly Democratic Senate. That's not going to happen."
Some Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, have since said that the President should resign or face impeachment.
The New York Times
On Afghanistan, Republicans Assails the Pullout It Had Supported Under Trump
Early last year, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, praised former President Donald J. Trump’s deal to pull American troops out of Afghanistan as “a positive step.” As secretary of state, Mike Pompeo helped negotiate that agreement with the Taliban. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri pressed last November for a withdrawal as soon as possible.
Now, the three are among dozens of prominent Republicans who, with President Biden seeing the pullout through, have sharply reversed themselves — assailing Mr. Biden even as he keeps a promise that Mr. Trump had made, and carries out a policy to which they had given their full-throated support.
The collective U-turn reflects Republicans’ eagerness to attack Mr. Biden and ensure that he pays a political price for the way he ended the war. With Mr. Trump reversing himself as the withdrawal grew chaotic and, in its endgame, deadly, it also offers new evidence of how allegiance to the former president has come to override compunctions about policy flip-flops or political hypocrisy.
The Washington Post
For Afghan evacuees arriving to U.S., a tenuous legal status and little financial support
The Biden administration is preparing to screen and resettle tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees in the United States over the coming weeks and months, but the majority will arrive without visas as “humanitarian parolees,” lacking a path to legal U.S. residency and the benefits and services offered to traditional refugees, according to U.S. officials and worried aid groups working closely with the government.
Afghan parolees who have arrived at U.S. military bases will be eligible for an ad hoc State Department program that provides limited assistance for up to 90 days, including a one-time $1,250 stipend. But they will not have the full range of medical, counseling and resettlement services available to immigrants who arrive through the U.S. refugee program.
The nonprofit organizations that work with the government to resettle refugees and that are assisting with Afghan evacuees say Congress will need to provide billions in emergency funding to help the Afghans start over and ensure they can be successfully and safely integrated into the United States.
President Biden called a Texas law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy a blatant violation of a woman's constitutional right to abortion established under the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling.
In a statement Wednesday, the president said his administration is committed to Roe v. Wade and will “protect and defend that right.”
The Texas law that went into effect Wednesday makes no exception for incest or rape while allowing private citizens to file civil suits against individuals who help a woman seeking an abortion.
A torrent of political groups representing some of the country’s most influential corporations — including ExxonMobil, Pfizer and the Walt Disney Company — are laying the groundwork for a lobbying blitz to stop Congress from enacting significant swaths of President Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic agenda.
The emerging opposition appears to be vast, spanning drug manufacturers, big banks, tech titans, major retailers and oil-and-gas giants. In recent weeks, top Washington organizations representing these and other industries have started strategizing behind the scenes, seeking to scuttle key elements in Democrats’ proposed overhaul to federal health care, education and safety net programs.
Among the most active is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is starting to put together an economy-wide coalition to coordinate the fight against the still forming economic package, including its significant price tag, policy scope and potential for tax increases.
CNBC
Matthew Calamari Jr., the Trump Organization’s director of security and son of its chief operating officer, is expected to testify Thursday before a Manhattan grand jury investigating … Donald Trump’s company, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNBC on Wednesday. […]
The development in the ongoing investigation comes two months after the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, were charged in connection with an alleged tax-avoidance scheme spanning 15 years. Weisselberg and the Trump Organization have pleaded not guilty.
Calamari Jr.‘s testimony could grant him crucial immunity protections in the wide-ranging and long-running criminal investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office.
Judge conditionally approves Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
A federal bankruptcy judge gave conditional approval Wednesday to a sweeping settlement that will remove the Sackler family from ownership of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and devote potentially $10 billion to fighting the opioid crisis that has killed a half-million Americans over the past two decades.
If it withstands appeals, the deal will resolve a mountain of 3,000 lawsuits from state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions and others that accuse the company of helping to spark the overdose epidemic by aggressively marketing the prescription painkiller.
Under the settlement, the Sacklers will have to get out of the opioid business altogether and contribute $4.5 billion. But they will be shielded from any future lawsuits over opioids.
ProPublica
The Education Department Will Forgive $5.8 Billion in Student Loans for Disabled Borrowers
The Education Department will forgive $5.8 billion in student loans taken out by borrowers who became seriously disabled, the latest in a series of reforms to a troubled program that left many vulnerable borrowers mired in debt they couldn’t repay. […]
Under the new regulation, the department will automatically forgive the debt of borrowers who the Social Security Administration has identified as severely disabled. The department will also move to eliminate a three-year monitoring period after loan discharges that led many borrowers with disabilities to have their debts reinstated due to difficulties with paperwork.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from borrowers with disabilities and advocates about the need for this change,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona when the department announced the reforms in August. “This change reduces red tape with the aim of making processes as simple as possible for borrowers who need support.”
Vox
Arizona launches a bold new experiment to limit racist convictions
Arizona’s conservative state Supreme Court took a surprising step last week that could lead to juries in that state being more racially diverse, and thus less likely to treat racial minorities more harshly.
It announced that it will eliminate “peremptory challenges” in Arizona — a practice that allows trial lawyers to remove jurors from a case, often for arbitrary or ill-defined reasons.
Although criminal justice reformers, including some who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, have warned for decades that peremptory challenges are often used to exclude jurors because of their race, the practice remains widespread in the United States. Arizona will be the first state to eliminate peremptory challenges entirely; the state’s new rules will take effect in January.
The Amazon rainforest’s most dogged defenders are in peril
Someone has been killing the Guajajara Guardians of the Forest and other Indigenous defenders of the Amazon who protect against illegal land grabbers, loggers, and miners.
Many Guajajara members, along with those from hundreds of other Native groups in Brazil, live in constant danger. According to data from the Brazilian government’s Indigenous health service, in 2019 at least 113 Indigenous people were killed in the country, a majority of whom were “committed to the protection of the borders of their territories and fought against logging and mining.”
The Guajajara Guardians patrol their reserve, Araribóia, on foot, and occasionally on boats and motorcycles, constantly monitoring for signs of illegal activity — from deserted machinery to other indications of active logging — a guardian and chief from one of the Araribóia villages explained to Vox. Some of them are armed, though the chief stressed that the group uses nonviolence in their work. (Guardians who spoke to Vox for this story spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.)
The Hindu
Separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani dies after prolonged illness
Hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, 91, passed away at his Srinagar residence on Wednesday, September 1, 2021 night, according to family sources.
Under strict house arrest for around a decade, Geelani developed "breathing complications" on Wednesday night around 10:30 p.m. and breathed his last, the family sources said. […]
Geelani, who is a three-time elected legislator from north Kashmir's Sopore, was active in the political landscape of J&K for around five decades. He served as a senior member of now-banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and also headed the hawkish faction of Hurriyat, which opposed any unconditional dialogue with the Centre and advocated J&K's accession with Pakistan.
Declare cow the national animal, says Allahabad High Court
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday said that the cow should be declared the national animal and that gau raksha (cow protection) should be included as a fundamental right of the Hindus. The court made the comments, along with a string of other observations, noting the religious and cultural significance of cows and the need for cow protection, while denying bail to Javed, a person from Sambhal, who has been in jail since March on charges of allegedly stealing a cow and slaughtering it with his associates.
While holding the cow as a symbol of Indian culture and talking of threats to this culture, a Bench of Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav also warned people that they should not forget the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.
The court said history was full of instances that “whenever we forgot our culture, foreigners attacked us and enslaved us and if we are not warned, we should not forget the unbridled attack on and capture of Afghanistan by Taliban”.
The Atlantic
The Planet Needs Jerome Powell
In recent weeks, the climate movement has become caught in the middle of a fight that seemingly has nothing to do with the environment: Should President Joe Biden renominate Jerome Powell to lead the Federal Reserve?
The choice of who should run the country’s central bank has historically not captivated climate advocates—or many Americans, for that matter—yet it has carved the left into two opposing camps, each claiming to fight for a greener economy.
On one side, a group of pro-Powell employment hawks argue that Powell has overturned right-wing orthodoxy that has needlessly cramped economic growth and impoverished American workers for decades. Their opponents—let’s call them the regulation hawks—say that Powell and other Republican Fed governors have gone too easy on big banks and are now risking a climate-induced financial crisis.
Even weirder than the fight happening at all is the fact that many of Powell’s climate critics say that he has done a good job executing the Fed’s most important duty. “Why the climate base is increasingly fired up about the Fed … has absolutely nothing to do with monetary policy,” Justin Guay, a prominent climate-finance activist, told me. Would anti-war progressives try to replace an openly pacifist secretary of defense because they disagreed with his management of DARPA? This is not so far from what’s happening in the Fed-chair fight.
The Guardian
Up to half of world’s wild tree species could be at risk of extinction
Between a third and half of the world’s wild tree species are threatened with extinction, posing a risk of wider ecosystem collapse, the most comprehensive global stocktake to date warns.
Forest clearance for farming is by far the biggest cause of the die-off, according to the State of the World’s Trees report, which was released on Wednesday along with a call for urgent action to reverse the decline.
The five-year, international study found 17,510 species of trees are threatened, which is twice the number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles combined.
This was 29.9% of the 58,497 known species of trees in the world. But the proportion at risk is likely to be higher as a further 7.1% were deemed “possibly threatened” and 21.6% were insufficiently evaluated. Only 41.5% were confirmed as safe.
WHO monitoring new coronavirus variant named Mu
The World Health Organization has added another version of coronavirus to its list of “variants of interest” amid concerns that it may partially evade the immunity people have developed from past infection or vaccination.
The Mu variant, also known as B.1.621, was added to the WHO’s watchlist on 30 August after it was detected in 39 countries and found to possess a cluster of mutations that may make it less susceptible to the immune protection many have acquired.
According to the WHO’s weekly bulletin on the pandemic, the Mu variant “has a constellation of mutations that indicate potential properties of immune escape”. Preliminary data suggests it may evade immune defences in a similar way to the Beta variant first discovered in South Africa, the report adds, but this needs to be confirmed by further work.
The Mu variant was first identified in Colombia in January 2021.
Al Jazeera
Qatar jet carrying technical team lands in Kabul
Technical teams from Qatar have landed at Kabul airport to discuss the resumption of activities after it was damaged during recent US and NATO evacuations.
The arrival on Wednesday came amid increasing concerns about the formation of a new government in Afghanistan and how the Taliban, which took over the country on August 15, intends to deal with the country’s ailing economy.
For millions of Afghans, life remains difficult and uncertain amid a crumbling economy. Government employees have not been paid salaries for months, and banks are barely functional as the country has been cut off from international financial institutions.
Brazil warns of energy crisis with record drought
Brazil’s Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque is warning that the country’s energy crisis is worse than previously thought, as a record drought hampers hydropower generation.
In a televised national address on Tuesday, preempting the nightly news, Albuquerque said the crisis had deepened, with water reserves at hydropower plants already at their lowest level in 91 years of records.
“Today I return to inform you that our hydro-energy conditions have worsened,” Albuquerque said. “The rainy season in the south was worse than expected. As a result, the reservoirs of our hydroelectric power plants in the southeast and midwest suffered a greater reduction than expected.”
Deutsche Welle
Weather disasters jump fivefold and will get worse: UN
Disasters caused by extreme weather have become much more frequent and costly since the 1970s even as warning systems have reduced numbers of fatalities, according to a report published by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Wednesday.
The report looked at damages and loss of life incurred through extreme climate and weather incidents between 1970 and 2019. Counting some 11,000 events, it noted that such disasters have increased fivefold in the past 50 years, largely due to climate change. On average, that comes out to one climate- or weather-related disaster per day.
"The number of weather, climate and water extremes are increasing and will become more frequent and severe in many parts of the world as a result of climate change," WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
Bloomberg
U.S. DOJ Readying Google Antitrust Lawsuit Over Ad-Tech Business
U.S. antitrust officials are preparing a second monopoly lawsuit against Alphabet Inc.’s Google over the company’s digital advertising business, according to a person familiar with the matter, stepping up the government’s claims that Google is abusing its dominance.
The Justice Department has accelerated its investigation of Google’s digital advertising practices and may file a lawsuit as soon as the end of the year, said the person, who declined to be named because the investigation is ongoing. No final decisions have been made and the timing could be pushed back.
China Is Blocking Fleeing Hong Kongers From Getting Their Retirement Money
As tens of thousands flee Hong Kong for a new life in the U.K., they’re confronting the risk that they will be forced to leave behind their retirement savings as China intensifies its crackdown on the city’s freedoms.
Scores are being denied access to money in the Mandatory Provident Fund because of the cascading impact of Beijing’s decision in January to withdraw recognition of British National Overseas passports as valid official documents.
The U.K. government anticipates more than 300,000 residents will use the passport to leave Hong Kong, putting billions of dollars at risk of being trapped. About 30,000 visa applications under the so-called BN(O) passports were made in the first quarter of 2021 alone.
The city’s retirement fund has told account providers that these passports can’t be used to prove departure from Hong Kong, a pre-requisite for early access to funds.
Ars Technica
New ruling reverts Clean Water Act protections to 1980s vintage
The latest legal decision in a years-long fight over how to implement the Clean Water Act has set rules back to where they were in the 1980s. The reversion is the product of the Trump administration's haste to get rid of Obama-era regulations, leading to action that produced rules running counter to the Environmental Protection Agency's own scientific findings. As a result, a judge has decided that the rules cannot remain in place for the time that will be needed for the Biden administration to formulate replacements.
The long-running saga is the product of the Clean Water Act's remarkably vague protections. The act seeks to control pollution via a permitting process that applies to the “waters of the United States," but it doesn't define what constitutes said waters. […]
In the absence of a clear definition in the statute itself, the relevant agency—in this case, the EPA—has been left to define what is regulated via a federal rule-making process. During the Obama administration, the EPA recognized that the then-active rules, which dated from 1986, were unpopular with both businesses and environmentalists and were increasingly out of step with our scientific understanding of the role of groundwater and seasonal bodies of water. So the agency began the process of formulating new rules, which required proposing them, soliciting public feedback, and modifying the rules in response.