Wheeler Does Bidding for Polluters and Puts Drinking Water for Millions of Families at Risk

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Former coal lobbyist and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler finalized his rollback of America’s Clean Water Rule today, putting millions of people’s drinking water at risk from dangerous water pollution. Before the rollback, a broad coalition of conservation, environmental, health, and wildlife groups submitted nearly half a million comments from the public to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers, opposing the rollback of the Clean Water Rule’s protection of millions of miles of streams and more than half the nation’s remaining wetlands. 

Wheeler’s replacement to the Clean Water Rule uses a radical reinterpretation of the Clean Water Act. Dubbed the “Dirty Water Rule” by policy experts and public health activists, Wheeler’s replacement would remove federal pollution-control safeguards for rain-dependent streams and exclude wetlands that do not have a surface water connection to other protected waters. These streams feed the drinking water sources of millions of Americans and communities throughout the nation who rely on wetlands for things like flood protection and groundwater recharge. 

In response, Dalal Aboulhosn, Sierra Club’s Deputy Legislative Director for Land and Water, released the following response: 

“By throwing out the Clean Water Rule, Andrew Wheeler is acting like the former coal lobbyist that he is, putting the drinking water for one in every three Americans at risk just so he can placate corporate polluters who don’t want to be held accountable.  We will fight Wheeler’s rollback to not only protect our communities from dangerous water pollution, but also restore order and common sense as to how we go about protecting our water in the future.”