6 ms·

Trump Prepares to Unveil a Vast Reworking of Clean Water Protections

91 points by macawfish 8y ago

masonic 8y ago
“They’re definitely rolling things back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era,” This is a flat lie, given that the Obama rule wasn't even put in place until the last 18% of his administration (barely 14 months before Trump's election).
- windexh8er 8y ago
  Honestly curious: why does the timing make it untrue?
  - masonic 8y ago
    Because what they are rolling it back to is just the pre-August 2015 rule. In other words, the Obama administration was fine with the existing rule until most of the way through his second term, apparently doing it for just political chits for the 2016 election cycle.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      That's a really confused way to look at policy.
      - masonic 8y ago
        It's not a reflection on policy so much as on media coverage of policy changes.
        maxerickson 8y ago
        In the comment I replied to, you plainly try to invalidate a policy goal based on it being rolled out near an election, a thing that is pretty much always true (nationally significant elections occur every 2 years...).
        masonic 8y ago
        a thing that is pretty much always true How many examples can you give from the Bush 43 administration? Or Bush 41? Or Reagan? The practice of implementing major policy changes as a lame duck was pretty much nonexistent before 2000. It becomes an even bigger problem when rules are implemented that conflict with law, like the 2014 DACA expansion[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals#Expansion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...
        kyralis 8y ago
        "Less than two years after inauguration" is a very bizarre definition of "lame duck".
        masonic 8y ago
        It was 6.5 years after inauguration.
        gpm 8y ago
        On the other hand the context of this discussion is > back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era The comment you objected to was, in my reading, mainly noting that this was reverting to the policy in place nearly 2 full presidencies after said era.
    - rco8786 8y ago
      By this logic everything passed during the last year or two of Obama’s (and I guess any president’s) 2nd term is political chits? Just because they didn’t pass the law for a few years doesn’t mean they didn’t care. There’s only so much any body of people can do at once.
      - shard972 8y ago
        The claim wasn't at it's core about Obama caring, it was about the false media framing this as a return to the bush era (between 10-18 years ago), when really its a change that happened in the Obama era (2-10 years ago).
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        rco8786 8y ago
        That claim is fine. I was responding to this: > In other words, the Obama administration was fine with the existing rule until most of the way through his second term, apparently doing it for just political chits for the 2016 election cycle.
- mc32 8y ago
  I believe they use the Bush claim because Bush put in a provision in his act that no wetlands (acreage) would be lost. [I.e. Obama added to the protected wetlands but Trump is proposing to take some of those added by Obama back] Bush's provision would disallow clawing back. But that is definitely not the same as taking regulation (or protected wetland or clean water) to the state before Bush I was in office. So, the article begins with that Bush claim but then references Obama implementations thereafter, so it does seem a bit disingenuous by them, but then, if they told it like it is, it would get people less agitated about it given it keeps some of the major provisions and isn't undoing regulation and setting it back to the way it was prior to Bush 1.
- cazum 8y ago
  The Bush rule is that "wetlands will keep their federal protection" The Obama rule is "farms near those wetlands cannot do bad thing to the wetlands" By repealing the Obama rule, they are inherently repealing the Bush one.
  - trothamel 8y ago
    Isn't the flaw with this that the two rules use a different definition for wetlands?
  - mc32 8y ago
    Sure, but that is not the same as the tacit claim "They’re definitely rolling things back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era".
    - addicted 8y ago
      Except that comment is likely referencing the regulatory environment, for which it is correct to state that the regulations are being rolled back to what they were before HW’s changes in this area.
  - masonic 8y ago
    No, you can't know that. The Trump rule, when it comes, doesn't have to correspond to any prior content. Note that the Times never criticized the existing rule until after Obama changed it late in his tenure, giving him political cover.
mindslight 8y ago
It is truly amazing how well these shitheads prey on our understandable frustration with the government to gather support, and redirect that energy into just creating more corruption to pad someone else's pocket. Even if downsizing pressure is applied evenly across the board, soft targets like the EPA take the damage while any reform that would actually cut into someone's bottom line remains unaffected. And the worst part is there will be countless cheerleaders who rationalize this action because the "other team" is upset.
- dmix 8y ago
  Yup I'm deep into the reducing government waste camp but of ALL the things to focus on that hurt business they focus on the one thing that's a compromise for something better, not just straight up wasteful interference in markets. There are a hundred better things to spend time on. There is an endless legacy of old agency mandates and legislation that started with good intentions to 'help the little guy' or whatnot that are a completely net negative for everyone (except a few politically connected companies). The EPA is not even a 'soft target', there are plenty of low hanging fruit. It's just a very public and obvious economic intervention, so it gets plenty of attention. Meanwhile the million other things the government has their hands in goes unnoticed. Politics is cancerous.
masonic 8y ago
Text of the Obama administration rule: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13435/clean-water-rule-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13...
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
This is what we get for putting so much power to interpret and enforce law in bureaucratic agencies.
- FlyMoreRockets 8y ago
  So, we should empower corporations to do the right thing without oversight?
  - time-domain0 8y ago
    They have a name for that: public-private partnerships (PPP).
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    We should make the legislative branch exercise more direct control over the alphabet soup of administrative agencies. I thought that was obvious but I guess not.
    - oculusthrift 8y ago
      don’t get why you’re being downvoted. it legislation was passed then it would be much harder to revoke with the next president on a whim
    - macawfish 8y ago
      That's what I assumed you meant too. I think you got collateral damage from anger toward diehard extreme libertarian capitalism.
  - macawfish 8y ago
    I think their point was just that the legislation could be more explicit and leave less leeway in the hands of the executive branch... Which of course is made difficult in a paralyzed, polarized legislative environment. This is actually one of the reasons I'm such a big fan of cardinal voting systems such as approval voting. I believe that they'd elect a more diverse body of legislators, so that coalition building would become both necessary for political survival, and possible in the first place. Right now there's no true coalition building, just hyperpartisan compromise.
gdubs 8y ago
Vernal pools are an extremely important part of the ecosystem and also play a role in carbon sequestration. The background of all of this begins with a farmer named Duarte who plowed a wetland on his property and ended up with a huge fine. It became a divisive issue; some cried government overreach, others said he should have listened to the army corps of engineers. But there’s a reason we have an Environmental Protection Agency — people by-and-large aren’t going to go out of their way to protect these natural resources. There are exceptions, and I know conservation minded farmers — but if you look at the aggregate of farming in America, well, it’s pretty terrible for the environment.
- __Joker 8y ago
  Yes. There is a reason governments should be involved in this. Climate control, environment protection are classic game theory problem. Individual can profit from destroying a little bit of the environment but as a group we lose. Essentially governments do the group bargaining. Unless there is a group which represents all people government has to play that part.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
It's as if Trump lives in an alternate universe. Is he really this stupid or careless? I really want to understand the mind of a person who doesn't give a shit what his grandchildren or their children will have to deal with in their lifetime. I had lost all hope in "people" (I use that as a collective term) a long time ago but I never thought the sheer stupidity that is humanity would make it to the POTUS office. Surely you have to have at minimum some common sense to become a president? Maybe not. Why is he still in office, or how?
- josho 8y ago
  Climate change will never materially affect Trump or his kin. Their wealth protects them from the harm. Eg. If storms make Florida bad for golfing then he simply flies to Texas for his weekend golf trips.
  - nixpulvis 8y ago
    Too bad trump isn't a skier.
  - time-domain0 8y ago
    I would say wealth insulates and delays effects, but it cannot stop them completely, i.e., a hypercane, desertification, 1000-year-drought, ESAS methane gun or reduced oxygenation.
- shard972 8y ago
  > Why is he still in office, or how? American presidents have 4 year terms, trump was elected in 2016 so hes in office till 2020. Maybe if he resigned it wouldn't be in anymore but I don't see why he would at this point.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    They were suggesting impeachment.
    - 8y ago
AckSyn 8y ago
If newspapers did more than just write stories and gave us their sources and citations that backed up their story, without the rhetoric, I'd be more apt to take them seriously. But their constant grandstanding and hyperbolizing is asinine. The language is deliberately biased and I'm wondering if they have any dignity left in them.
cimmanom 8y ago
And by “reworking” they mean “undermining”?

91 points by macawfish 8y ago

“They’re definitely rolling things back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era,” This is a flat lie, given that the Obama rule wasn't even put in place until the last 18% of his administration (barely 14 months before Trump's election).

windexh8er 8y ago
Honestly curious: why does the timing make it untrue?
- masonic 8y ago
  Because what they are rolling it back to is just the pre-August 2015 rule. In other words, the Obama administration was fine with the existing rule until most of the way through his second term, apparently doing it for just political chits for the 2016 election cycle.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    That's a really confused way to look at policy.
    - masonic 8y ago
      It's not a reflection on policy so much as on media coverage of policy changes.
      - maxerickson 8y ago
        In the comment I replied to, you plainly try to invalidate a policy goal based on it being rolled out near an election, a thing that is pretty much always true (nationally significant elections occur every 2 years...).
        masonic 8y ago
        a thing that is pretty much always true How many examples can you give from the Bush 43 administration? Or Bush 41? Or Reagan? The practice of implementing major policy changes as a lame duck was pretty much nonexistent before 2000. It becomes an even bigger problem when rules are implemented that conflict with law, like the 2014 DACA expansion[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals#Expansion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_...
        kyralis 8y ago
        "Less than two years after inauguration" is a very bizarre definition of "lame duck".
        masonic 8y ago
        It was 6.5 years after inauguration.
        gpm 8y ago
        On the other hand the context of this discussion is > back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era The comment you objected to was, in my reading, mainly noting that this was reverting to the policy in place nearly 2 full presidencies after said era.
  - rco8786 8y ago
    By this logic everything passed during the last year or two of Obama’s (and I guess any president’s) 2nd term is political chits? Just because they didn’t pass the law for a few years doesn’t mean they didn’t care. There’s only so much any body of people can do at once.
    - shard972 8y ago
      The claim wasn't at it's core about Obama caring, it was about the false media framing this as a return to the bush era (between 10-18 years ago), when really its a change that happened in the Obama era (2-10 years ago).
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - rco8786 8y ago
        That claim is fine. I was responding to this: > In other words, the Obama administration was fine with the existing rule until most of the way through his second term, apparently doing it for just political chits for the 2016 election cycle.
mc32 8y ago
I believe they use the Bush claim because Bush put in a provision in his act that no wetlands (acreage) would be lost. [I.e. Obama added to the protected wetlands but Trump is proposing to take some of those added by Obama back] Bush's provision would disallow clawing back. But that is definitely not the same as taking regulation (or protected wetland or clean water) to the state before Bush I was in office. So, the article begins with that Bush claim but then references Obama implementations thereafter, so it does seem a bit disingenuous by them, but then, if they told it like it is, it would get people less agitated about it given it keeps some of the major provisions and isn't undoing regulation and setting it back to the way it was prior to Bush 1.
cazum 8y ago
The Bush rule is that "wetlands will keep their federal protection" The Obama rule is "farms near those wetlands cannot do bad thing to the wetlands" By repealing the Obama rule, they are inherently repealing the Bush one.
- trothamel 8y ago
  Isn't the flaw with this that the two rules use a different definition for wetlands?
- mc32 8y ago
  Sure, but that is not the same as the tacit claim "They’re definitely rolling things back to the pre-George H.W. Bush era".
  - addicted 8y ago
    Except that comment is likely referencing the regulatory environment, for which it is correct to state that the regulations are being rolled back to what they were before HW’s changes in this area.
- masonic 8y ago
  No, you can't know that. The Trump rule, when it comes, doesn't have to correspond to any prior content. Note that the Times never criticized the existing rule until after Obama changed it late in his tenure, giving him political cover.

mindslight 8y ago

It is truly amazing how well these shitheads prey on our understandable frustration with the government to gather support, and redirect that energy into just creating more corruption to pad someone else's pocket. Even if downsizing pressure is applied evenly across the board, soft targets like the EPA take the damage while any reform that would actually cut into someone's bottom line remains unaffected. And the worst part is there will be countless cheerleaders who rationalize this action because the "other team" is upset.

dmix 8y ago
Yup I'm deep into the reducing government waste camp but of ALL the things to focus on that hurt business they focus on the one thing that's a compromise for something better, not just straight up wasteful interference in markets. There are a hundred better things to spend time on. There is an endless legacy of old agency mandates and legislation that started with good intentions to 'help the little guy' or whatnot that are a completely net negative for everyone (except a few politically connected companies). The EPA is not even a 'soft target', there are plenty of low hanging fruit. It's just a very public and obvious economic intervention, so it gets plenty of attention. Meanwhile the million other things the government has their hands in goes unnoticed. Politics is cancerous.

masonic 8y ago

Text of the Obama administration rule: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13435/clean-water-rule-definition-of-waters-of-the-united-states https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/06/29/2015-13...

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

This is what we get for putting so much power to interpret and enforce law in bureaucratic agencies.

FlyMoreRockets 8y ago
So, we should empower corporations to do the right thing without oversight?
- time-domain0 8y ago
  They have a name for that: public-private partnerships (PPP).
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  We should make the legislative branch exercise more direct control over the alphabet soup of administrative agencies. I thought that was obvious but I guess not.
  - oculusthrift 8y ago
    don’t get why you’re being downvoted. it legislation was passed then it would be much harder to revoke with the next president on a whim
  - macawfish 8y ago
    That's what I assumed you meant too. I think you got collateral damage from anger toward diehard extreme libertarian capitalism.
- macawfish 8y ago
  I think their point was just that the legislation could be more explicit and leave less leeway in the hands of the executive branch... Which of course is made difficult in a paralyzed, polarized legislative environment. This is actually one of the reasons I'm such a big fan of cardinal voting systems such as approval voting. I believe that they'd elect a more diverse body of legislators, so that coalition building would become both necessary for political survival, and possible in the first place. Right now there's no true coalition building, just hyperpartisan compromise.

gdubs 8y ago

Vernal pools are an extremely important part of the ecosystem and also play a role in carbon sequestration. The background of all of this begins with a farmer named Duarte who plowed a wetland on his property and ended up with a huge fine. It became a divisive issue; some cried government overreach, others said he should have listened to the army corps of engineers. But there’s a reason we have an Environmental Protection Agency — people by-and-large aren’t going to go out of their way to protect these natural resources. There are exceptions, and I know conservation minded farmers — but if you look at the aggregate of farming in America, well, it’s pretty terrible for the environment.

__Joker 8y ago
Yes. There is a reason governments should be involved in this. Climate control, environment protection are classic game theory problem. Individual can profit from destroying a little bit of the environment but as a group we lose. Essentially governments do the group bargaining. Unless there is a group which represents all people government has to play that part.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

It's as if Trump lives in an alternate universe. Is he really this stupid or careless? I really want to understand the mind of a person who doesn't give a shit what his grandchildren or their children will have to deal with in their lifetime. I had lost all hope in "people" (I use that as a collective term) a long time ago but I never thought the sheer stupidity that is humanity would make it to the POTUS office. Surely you have to have at minimum some common sense to become a president? Maybe not. Why is he still in office, or how?

josho 8y ago
Climate change will never materially affect Trump or his kin. Their wealth protects them from the harm. Eg. If storms make Florida bad for golfing then he simply flies to Texas for his weekend golf trips.
- nixpulvis 8y ago
  Too bad trump isn't a skier.
- time-domain0 8y ago
  I would say wealth insulates and delays effects, but it cannot stop them completely, i.e., a hypercane, desertification, 1000-year-drought, ESAS methane gun or reduced oxygenation.
shard972 8y ago
> Why is he still in office, or how? American presidents have 4 year terms, trump was elected in 2016 so hes in office till 2020. Maybe if he resigned it wouldn't be in anymore but I don't see why he would at this point.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  They were suggesting impeachment.
  - 8y ago

AckSyn 8y ago

If newspapers did more than just write stories and gave us their sources and citations that backed up their story, without the rhetoric, I'd be more apt to take them seriously. But their constant grandstanding and hyperbolizing is asinine. The language is deliberately biased and I'm wondering if they have any dignity left in them.

cimmanom 8y ago

And by “reworking” they mean “undermining”?