Waters that dry up for more than 30 days a year could lose federal protections under a new proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The move comes as the Trump administration works to redefine which bodies of water are regulated under the Clean Water Act and would require federal permits for activities like dumping pollution.
The Biden administration excluded a majority of the country’s wetlands from protections after a 2023 Supreme Court decision, Sackett v. EPA, narrowed the definition of waters under federal jurisdiction. That decision said the federal government could only regulate wetlands with a continuous surface connection to a “relatively permanent” body of water.