type: timeline_event
Following the January 5, 2026 deadline for public comments, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers advanced their proposed redefinition of "Waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act, significantly narrowing federal water protections. The proposed rule, announced November 17, 2025 by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle, would establish a dramatically reduced scope of waters subject to federal regulation. The agencies characterize the rule as implementing the Supreme Court's decision in Sackett v. EPA while eliminating red tape and cutting permitting costs, claiming it will lower the cost of doing business while maintaining protections for the nation's waters.
The proposed changes include new definitions of key terms like "relatively permanent," "continuous surface connection," and "tributary" that would substantially limit which water bodies fall under Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The rule reaffirms that wetlands must physically touch a jurisdictional water and hold surface water for a requisite duration year after year, and adds a new exclusion for groundwater. These changes would likely reduce the number of water bodies covered under the Clean Water Act, removing federal safeguards from many rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and other vital waterways.
Environmental organizations strongly opposed the proposed rule during the public comment period. Waterkeeper Alliance warned that by narrowing the scope of waters protected under the Clean Water Act, the reinterpretation removes federal safeguards from many headwaters, seasonal streams, and wetlands—critical parts of healthy watersheds. The rule would leave these waters open to pollution, dredging, and filling without federal oversight, threatening clean drinking water, recreation, fisheries, and aquatic life. Critics argue that while the Sackett decision narrowed certain aspects of federal jurisdiction, it does not require the sweeping weakening of protections proposed in this rule.
The WOTUS redefinition represents one component of a comprehensive strategy to roll back water quality protections. On January 13, 2026, EPA separately proposed changes to Clean Water Act Section 401 certification processes, with comments due February 17, 2026. Together, these regulatory actions threaten to create a patchwork of unprotected waters across the United States, undermining decades of progress in water quality improvement and placing vulnerable ecosystems and drinking water sources at risk from unregulated pollution and development.