The Trump administration’s proposed new definition of “Waters of the United States” in the Clean Water Act is either a radical policy shift that misinterprets Supreme Court precedent and will leave up to 70 percent of tributaries and half the nation’s wetlands unprotected, or it’s a constitutionally valid approach to regulating the nation’s waters that preserves the states’ lead role over water pollution control and land use planning.

Growers in California and several other states are fighting to retain use of chlorpyrifos, a broad-spectrum insecticide environmentalists and farmworker advocates have sought to ban for years.

EPA is sifting through widely divergent comments in an attempt to clarify the Clean Water Act's regulation of groundwater.

When Scott Pruitt appeared last June before House appropriators to discuss the budget proposal for his agency, he made a bold pronouncement: “We will have a final rule that will provide a definition for ‘waters of the United States’ by the fourth quarter of this year, no later than the first quarter of next year, because that’s the job of the agency.”

Federal wildlife agencies would consult with the Environmental Protection Agency on the effect of pesticides on endangered species in a much different way, if the farm bill introduced by House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, becomes law.