July, 13 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Andrew Hawley, Western Environmental Law Center, hawley@westernlaw.org
Amy Kober, American Rivers, akober@americanrivers.org
Bob Nasdor, American Whitewater, bob@americanwhitewater.org
Nic Nelson, Idaho Rivers United, nic@idahorivers.org
Walter “Redgie” Collins, California Trout, rcollins@caltrout.org
Outdoor Recreation and Conservation Advocates Challenge EPA Rule Granting Industry Priority Over State, Public in Clean Water Decisions
Citing breathtaking levels of overreach, conservation, fishing, and paddling advocates today filed a complaint in federal court challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
SEATTLE
Citing breathtaking levels of overreach, conservation, fishing, and paddling advocates today filed a complaint in federal court challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) final rule effectively sidelining the role the states and the public have long played in permitting decisions affecting clean water.
"With this rule change, the Trump administration has given corporations the green light to run roughshod over local communities, and has proven it is more interested in corporate rights than states' rights," said Andrew Hawley, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. "The judicial branch must intervene to preserve some semblance of balance in our nation. What an opportunity for the courts here: To stop this flagrant overreach steamrolling states and Tribes while preserving an essential public health and clean water protection."
The new rule guts the Clean Water Act's Section 401 provisions, which for nearly 50 years have provided for states' and authorized Tribes' self-determination in permitting for a wide array of projects requiring federal approval within their borders. The rule also suppresses state and Tribal public participation processes that moor U.S. water policy in the harbor of democracy.
"Now is not the time to be rolling back protections for our rivers and clean water," said Chris Williams, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers. "We need to be doing more, not less, to ensure healthy rivers can provide clean drinking water and support strong communities and local economies. The Trump administration's unlawful new 401 rules abandon the Clean Water Act's commitment to providing a voice for Tribes, states, and communities in how their rivers and streams are protected and managed, allowing potentially harmful projects to escape critical local review. We must protect the rights of states and Tribes to defend clean water safeguards."
"The rule changes will have a long-term and devastating effect on California's ability to manage its clean water resources," said Redgie Collins, staff attorney at California Trout. "Unless changed, this gives hydroelectric dam operators the ability to skirt State Water Board regulations that protect the health, safety, and welfare of all Californians."
This rule change is separate from rollbacks to the Waters of the U.S. Rule (WOTUS), which eliminates protections for many waterbodies throughout the country, but represents an equally dangerous threat to clean water and public health nationwide: Section 401 applies broadly to any proposed federally licensed or permitted activity that may result in a discharge into any waterway that is covered under the law. Projects that may be approved against states' and Tribes' wishes include pipelines, hydropower, industrial plants, municipal facilities, and wetland development.
Working in combination, the Section 401 and WOTUS rollbacks will make it virtually impossible for states, Tribes, and communities to stand in opposition to projects that will pollute and harm their rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands.
Further, the new rule limits the information on proposed projects that may be made available to the states, Tribes, and the public.
"These new regulations are a brazen attack on the Clean Water Act with the goal of undermining the public's ability to protect our rivers from harmful impacts of federally-licensed energy projects on the environment and outdoor recreation," said Bob Nasdor, American Whitewater legal director. "Rather than protecting and restoring our rivers, these rules will weaken water quality by limiting the information, time for review, and ability of the states to require that projects meet state standards."
"Under the cover of COVID-19, the Trump administration has again stripped one of our bedrock environmental laws and is giving extractive and polluting industries the power to dictate their own pollutant levels in our rivers, lakes, and wetlands, all in the name of profit," said Nic Nelson of Idaho Rivers United. "By effectively silencing public review and participation processes for these projects, they will have equally degraded our basic rights of democracy."
The new rule, finalized without Congressional input, directly overturns Congress' intent to integrate state and federal authority for permitting decisions affecting state waterways.
Letters (public comments) from states, Tribes, and organizations opposing Section 401 rollbacks:
Opposition Letter: State of South Dakota (scathing)
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/v.mLY3z2d_20191021South_Dakota_CWA_401_commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Arkansas
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/5RTbsrt8~_AR_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of California
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/F1zojtGKa_20191021_Ltr_to_A_Wheeler_re_SWRCB
Opposition Letter: Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/FoaQ2zvAh_20191021Yakama_Nation_Section_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: Inter Tribal Association of Arizona
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/.jk5nJ1oK_InterTribal_Assn_of_AZ_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Idaho
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/kZlX31CB7_ID_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Louisiana
October 19, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/F52ivsrg._LA_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
October 22, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/UTuKpy6FF_Menominee_Tribe_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Montana
October 17, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/SnoPVhxYj_MT_401_rule_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Nevada
October 17, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/0BeC6MkzI_NV_401_Rule_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of New York
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/c0.jrsYs~_NY_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Pennsylvania
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/Q9h7qFprp_PA_Comments_on_401_rulepdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: Seattle City Light
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/XDTlaYaTh_Seattle_City_Light_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: Skokomish Indian Tribe
October 20, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/NKCE.ps4l_20191020Skokomish_Tribe_Section_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: Standing Rock Sioux
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/67Ar2EyV8_Standing_Rock_Sioux_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Tennessee
October 21, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/e7PdQltny_TN_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Texas
October, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/SS5mPC48m_TX_401_commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians
October 14, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/hiNTrBCKr_Twenty_Nine_Palms_Band_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: State of Washington
May 24, 2019
https://pdfhost.io/v/21GYgD4xa_WA_401_Commentspdf.pdf
Opposition Letter: National Governors' Association
October 18, 2019
https://www.nga.org/policy-communications/letters-nga/natural-resources-committee/
Opposition Letter: Western Governors' Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, Council of State Governments, Western Interstate Region, Association of Clean Water Administrators, Association of State Floodplain Managers, Association of State Wetland Managers, Western States Water Council
October 16, 2019
https://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/Documents/standcomm/scnri/EPA_NPRM_CWA_401_Comments_FINAL.pdf?ver=2019-10-17-150909-880×tamp=1571346568787
Opposition Letter: Earthjustice, Sierra Club, and 31 other organizations
October 21, 2019
https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files
Opposition Letter: Sens. Carper, Duckworth, and Booker
October 21, 2019
Opposition Letter: Southern Environmental Law Center
October 21, 2019
Opposition Letter: Rep. Peter DeFazio
July 29, 2019
https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-7-29%20PAD_LTR%20to%20EPA%20re%20401Certification.pdf
The Western Environmental Law Center uses the power of the law to safeguard the public lands, wildlife, and communities of the American West in the face of a changing climate. We envision a thriving, resilient West, abundant with protected public lands and wildlife, powered by clean energy, and defended by communities rooted in an ethic of conservation.
(541) 485-2471LATEST NEWS
Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Colonies in Occupied West Bank
"The ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support," said one observer.
Dec 21, 2025
Israel's Cabinet on Sunday finalized approval of 19 new Jewish-only settler colonies in the illegally occupied West Bank, a move the apartheid state's far-right finance minister said was aimed at thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Cabinet ministers approved the legalization of the previously unauthorized settler outposts throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, bringing the total number of new settlements in recent years to 69.
The move will bring the overall total number of exclusively or overwhelmingly Jewish settlements—which are illegal under international law—to more than 200, up from around 140 just three years ago.
Included in the new approval are two former settlements—Kadim and Ganim—that were evacuated in compliance with the now effectively repealed 2005 Disengagement Law, under which Israel dismantled all of its colonies in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank.
"This is righting a historic injustice of expulsion from 20 years ago," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who is a settler—said on Sunday. "We are putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state."
"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the inherited land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of our path," Smotrich added.
Following an earlier round of approval for the new settlements last week, Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “All Israeli settlement activity is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month denounced Israel's "relentless" settlement expansion.
Such colonization, said Guterres, "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials—some of whom, including Smotrich, deny the very existence of the Palestinian people—have vowed that such a state will not be established.
While Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—is under pressure from right-wing and far-right government officials, settlers, and others to annex all of the West Bank, US President Donald Trump recently said that "Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened."
Some doubted Trump's threat, with Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) executive director Sarah Leah Whitson reacting to the new settlements' approval by posting on X that "the ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support."
Israel seized and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza in 1967, ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the Jewish terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forced from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.
Settlers often attack Palestinians and their property, including in deadly pogroms, in order to terrorize them into leaving so their land can be stolen. Israeli colonists have also attacked Israel Defense Forces soldiers they view as standing in the way of their expansion.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
As the world's attention focused on Gaza during the past two years, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,039 Palestinians—at least 225 of them children—in the West Bank. This year, at least 233 Palestinians, including at least 52 children, have been killed so far, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.
On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, including a 16-year-old boy, Rayan Abu Muallah, who the Israel Defense Forces said was shot after he threw an object at its troops.
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Trump Ramps Up Aggression Against Venezuela With Seizure of Ship Not Under US Sanctions
The Venezuelan government condemned the seizure as "a serious act of international piracy;" meanwhile, a US official said the Coast Guard was pursuing a third tanker in the Caribbean.
Dec 21, 2025
The Trump administration's "total and complete blockade" of "all sanctioned oil tankers" off the Venezuelan coast was already denounced by critics as "an act of war"—and the United States further escalated its aggression on Saturday by seizing a tanker that is not on a list vessels under US sanctions.
US Coast Guard troops led Saturday's seizure of the Centuries, a Panamanian-flagged, Chinese-owned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea, after it left Venezuela.
"The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco-terrorism in the region," US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X. "We will find you, and we will stop you."
On Sunday, an unnamed US official told Reuters that the Coast Guard "is in active pursuit" of a third tanker near Venezuela, "a sanctioned dark fleet vessel" that "is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.”
The Venezuelan government condemned Saturday's seizure as "a serious act of international piracy."
Venezuela “denounces and rejects the theft and hijacking of a new private vessel transporting oil, as well as the forced disappearance of its crew, committed by military personnel of the United States of America in international waters," Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said in a statement.
“These acts will not go unpunished,” she vowed, adding that Venezuela will pursue "all corresponding actions, including filing a complaint before the United Nations Security Council, other multilateral organizations, and the governments of the world."
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump declared a blockade of all oil tankers under US sanctions that are traveling to or from Venezuela.
Saturday's action followed the US seizure of the Panamanian-flagged Skipper—which is under sanctions—off the Venezuelan coast on December 10.
The Centuries seizure also comes amid the Trump administration's bombing of at least 28 boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, attacks that have killed more than 100 people and have been condemned as acts of extrajudicial murder.
In addition to the blockade and boat strikes, Trump has deployed an armada of warships and thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean, authorized covert CIA action against the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and has threatened to invade the South American nation. This latest wave of aggression continues more than a century of US meddling in Venezuela's affairs and sovereignty.
Numerous world leaders have denounced the US aggression toward Venezuela. On Saturday, leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva said during a summit of the South American Mercosur bloc in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil that an "armed intervention in Venezuela would be a humanitarian catastrophe."
In the United States, multiple efforts by members of Congress—mostly Democrats, but also a handful of anti-war Republicans—to pass a war powers resolution blocking the Trump administration from bombing boats or attacking Venezuela have failed.
Echoing assertions by Venezuelan officials and others, one of those Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said earlier this week that Trump's aggressive escalation "is all about oil and regime change."
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"What else is being covered up?"
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Congressional Democrats on Saturday pressed US Attorney General Pam Bondi for answers regarding the apparent removal of a photo showing President Donald Trump surrounded by young female models from Friday's Department of Justice release of files related to the late convicted child sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Amid the heavily redacted documents in Friday's DOJ release was a photo of a desk with an open drawer containing multiple photos of Trump, including one of him with Epstein and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and another of him with the models.
However, the photo—labeled EFTA00000468 in the DOJ's Epstein Library—was no longer on the site as of Saturday morning.
"This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump, has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release," Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a Bluesky post. "AG Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public."
This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release.AG Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.
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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) December 20, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Numerous critics have accused the Trump administration of a cover-up due to the DOJ's failure to meet a Friday deadline to release all Epstein-related documents and heavy redactions—including documents of 100 pages or more that are completely blacked out—to many of the files.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded to the criticism by claiming that "the only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law—full stop."
"Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim," he added.
Earlier this year, officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly redacted Trump's name from its file on Epstein, who was the president's longtime former friend and who died in 2019 in a New York City jail cell under mysterious circumstances officially called suicide while facing federal child sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Trump has not been accused of any crimes in connection with Epstein.
House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said during a Friday CNN interview that the DOJ only released about 10% of the full Epstein files.
The DOJ is breaking the law by not releasing the full Epstein files. This is not transparency. This is just more coverup by Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. They need to release all the files, NOW.
[image or embed]
— Congressman Robert Garcia (@robertgarcia.house.gov) December 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
"The DOJ has had months and hundreds of agents to put these files together, and yet entire documents are redacted—from the first word to the last," Garcia said on X. "What are they hiding? The American public deserves transparency. Release all the files now!"
In a joint statement Friday, Garcia and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, "We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law."
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