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IMAGE: Victor Flatt, Dwight Olds Chair in Law at the University of Houston Law Center, is co-author of the study published in Journal Science. view more
Credit: University of Houston Law Center
The familiar murkiness of waters in the Gulf of Mexico can be off-putting for beachgoers visiting Galveston Island. Runoff from the Mississippi River makes its way to local beaches and causes downstream water to turn opaque and brown. Mud is one factor, and river runoff is another. However, concern tends to ratchet up a notch when pollution enters the river runoff discussion on a national scale, specifically when smaller, navigable intrastate bodies of water push pollution into larger interstate waters often involved in commerce (i.e. the Mississippi River, Great Lakes, Ohio River).
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Federal Water Rule Does Not Account for Pollution Across State Boundaries
AUSTIN, Texas – In a research analysis to be published Friday in Science, scholars contend that a new federal water rule enacted in 2020 does not adequately account for transboundary pollution across state lines.
One of the government’s rationales for enacting the new rule, which removed millions of acres of wetlands and millions of miles of streams from federal protection, was an assumption that states would fill gaps in federal oversight. The research analysis, co-authored by Sheila Olmstead of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, suggests this may not occur.
A recent report finds that the Trump administration’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule revises crucial distinctions that define protected waters, reducing safeguards for US waters based on flawed methods and unsubstantiated assumptions.