epa

1. September 19, 2026News3 receipts4 min

   EPA and the Army Corps are weighing a Clean Water Act test that would cover only water flowing every day of the year. Their own notice says most intermittent streams and most wetlands now protected would fall outside it. Comments close October 9.

   On September 9 the EPA and the Army Corps published a supplemental proposal to their pending rewrite of which 'waters of the United States' the Clean Water Act covers. The new option would define 'relatively permanent' as perennial, water standing or flowing every day of the year in ordinary conditions, allowing only one dry spell of up to 30 days a year. Wetlands would be covered only where perennial surface water makes them hard to tell apart from a covered water. The agencies write that most intermittent streams would not qualify and that 'the majority of wetlands' jurisdictional under current rules would not either, with 'a significant reduction in federally jurisdictional waters' in the arid West. They give no acreage or mileage estimates. Public comments are due October 9, 2026, in docket EPA-HQ-OW-2025-0322.

   Also filed underarmy-corpsclean-water-actwetlandswotusfederal-registerpublic-comment

2. September 16, 2026Commentary4 receipts6 min

   Before you repeat a number, find the sentence where its author says how wrong it might be. Four big numbers landed this week. Three of them came with that sentence. One came with nothing.

   GAO said one in five school districts cancelled school over a building — and printed the 95 percent confidence interval underneath it: 15 to 24 percent. GAO said federal agencies spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave — and said in the same breath that its own source data probably overstates it, by a measurable amount, in a direction it names. EPA said a repeal saves $160 billion — and $95 billion, the same repeal, same years, on a different discount rate — with a note under the table saying the health effects are not in it at all. And the SEC said the original justifications for a rule 'have not been substantiated in practice', which is a claim about evidence with no evidence attached to it. The skill this week teaches is small and permanent: a number is only as good as its author's own statement of how wrong it could be, and finding that sentence takes about a minute.

   Also filed undermethodstatisticsuncertaintygaosec

3. September 16, 2026News3 receipts5 min

   EPA finished repealing most of the 2024 power plant carbon rules and, the same day and in the same docket, proposed erasing the rest. One of those is closed to you. The other closes November 2.

   The Federal Register issue dated September 17 carries two EPA documents with one docket number between them. The first is a final rule: it repeals most of the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards for power plants, takes effect November 16, and the agency says it is not reopening it. The second is a supplemental proposal arguing that the Clean Air Act does not authorize EPA to regulate power plant emissions for climate reasons at all — which would rescind the 2015 findings and repeal every remaining greenhouse gas standard for the source category. Comments on the second close November 2; a virtual hearing is October 1; the last day to register to speak is September 29, and each speaker gets four minutes. EPA puts the compliance cost savings of the finished repeal at $160 billion present value at a 3% discount rate and $95 billion at 7%, and states in the same table that it has not monetized the health and welfare impacts of the emission changes.

   Also filed underclean-air-actrulemakingfederal-registercomment-deadlinepower-plants

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