U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy today cheered President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to review and amend an Obama-era environmental rule known as the “Waters of the U.S.” rule, which critics say gave the federal government too much power to regulate the nation’s waterways.
“The Obama administration hampered our economy with regulations that changed too often and sometimes even contradicted each other,” Cassidy says in a prepared statement. “Today’s executive order is a first step that will bring certainty to industry and ensure that Louisiana’s energy, agriculture and construction sectors can bring good paying jobs to our communities and families.”
Trump’s directive compels the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the 2015 rule, Bloomberg reports.
The president called the rule “one of the worst examples of federal regulations,” saying it burdened farmers, ranchers and homebuilders by extending the EPA’s authority to “include any puddle.”
The Trump administration also will ask a federal court to halt consideration of a lawsuit from dozens of states and an assortment of businesses and agricultural groups challenging the rule while the measure is being reviewed, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the document before its release.
Trump’s decision sets in motion a slow-moving regulatory process aimed at rewriting the rule over the next several years.
The move is the first of several environmental directives expected from the Trump administration in coming days. Another document aims to dismantle the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature plan for combating climate change by slashing greenhouse gas emissions tied to the generation of electricity.
