As if we needed more proof this administration cares nothing for the environment or public health, the TEPA stated yesterday that it doesn’t know how many streams will be excluded from the Clean Water Act and the chief of TEPA’s Office of Water Dave Ross stated no one has that data.
Reporters from E&E News, Ariel Wittenberg and Kevin Bogardus obtained evidence from a slideshow from 2017 that contains the data and even further, it demonstrates that at
least 18% of streams and 51% of wetlands would not be protected under TEPA’s
new definition of WOTUS (Waters of the United States). The slides were prepared from data supplied by
the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Hydrography Dataset (NHD).
Later E&E News asked TEPA Molly Block why they didn’t
use the USGS data as the EPA did under Shrub’s administration in 2005. Unsurprisingly, Block defended Ross’
statement, saying the EPA and the Army Corps had determined the datasets are “not
robust enough” to depict federally regulated waters.
In Trumpspeak, that means 'we don’t like what the data is
showing so we choose to ignore it.'
This comes on the heels of Andrew Wheeler’s inability to
come up with three programs the TEPA has to protect the Clean Air Act. There simply are few, if at all, that exist.
We are so screwed.
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