The Biden administration on Thursday will move to restore authority to states and tribes to veto gas pipelines, coal terminals and other energy projects if they would pollute local rivers and streams, reversing a Trump-era rule that had curtailed that power.
For 50 years, the Clean Water Act has given states and tribes the ability to review federal permits for industrial facilities and block projects that could discharge pollution into local waterways. Without their certification, the federal government cannot approve a project.
Michael S. Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the agency was proposing a rule that “builds on this foundation by empowering states, territories, and tribes to use congressionally granted authority to protect precious water resources while supporting much-needed infrastructure projects that create jobs and bolster our economy.”
Some states have used their authority under the Clean Water Act to stop or delay fossil fuel projects. In 2017, Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington refused to certify a federal water permit for a coal export facility on the Columbia River, citing the risk of significant spills as well as effects on air quality. In 2020, Andrew Cuomo, who was governor of New York at the time, denied a permit for a pipeline that would have shipped natural gas into his state from Pennsylvania, based on the project’s “inability to demonstrate” that it could comply with water quality standards.
In 2020, the Trump administration implemented a rule to curtail that review power and limit the time during which states and tribes could grant or deny permits. Trump officials argued that Democratic states were essentially conducting climate policy under the guise of a law intended for a different purpose. They said they wanted to curb abuses of the law that were holding fossil fuels projects “hostage.”
Environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers accused the Trump administration of fast-tracking big energy projects at the urging of the oil and gas industry.
