After Lobbying, Wetlands Rules Are Narrowed

WASHINGTON, July 5 — After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams.

The administration last fall prepared broad new rules for interpreting the decision, handed down by a divided Supreme Court in June 2006, that could have brought thousands of small streams and wetlands under the protection of the Clean Water Act of 1972. The draft guidelines, for example, would allow the government to protect marsh lands and temporary ponds that form during heavy rains if they could potentially affect water quality in a nearby navigable waterway.

But just before the new guidelines were to be issued last September, they were pulled back in the face of objections from lobbyists and lawyers for groups concerned that the rules could lead to federal protection of isolated and insignificant swamps, potholes and ditches.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with enforcing the Clean Water Act, finally issued new guidelines last month, which environmental and recreational groups said were much more narrowly drawn. These groups argue that the final guidelines will leave thousands of sensitive wetlands and streams unprotected.

The changes in wording between the September and June versions of the guidelines were subtle, hinging on broad scientific questions raised by the Supreme Court ruling over the nature of wetlands and natural drainage systems.

The most nettlesome of these issues was whether regulators need to show that a wetland is directly connected to a navigable body of water in deciding if they have jurisdiction to require permits under the Clean Water Act. The alternate reading, favored by environmental groups, is that it is enough to prove that a wetland or stream is part of a large watershed that drains into such waters.
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