The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday proposed a rule change to an element of the Clean Water Act, which was initially signed into law in 1972. Section 401 of the Clean Water Act gives states and tribes the right “to grant, deny, or waive certification of proposed federal licenses or permits that may discharge into waters of the United States.”
The EPA is now seeking to narrow the scope with which Section 401 can be used, asserting that the statute previously has been improperly used to put the brakes on unpopular infrastructure projects such as pipelines.
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