NCPA


Policy Issues

NCPA Publications

Both Sides

Editorial Opinions

Audio/Visual


NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
HOME / DONATE / ONE LEVEL UP / ABOUT NCPA / CONTACT US
New Rules Rein in Corps' Authority Over Wetlands
Daily Policy Digest

Environmental Issues / Public Lands

Thursday, February 13, 2003
The Army Corps of Engineers is, by statute, the country's preeminent protector of wetlands. For the past two years, however, the Corps has been recalculating its authority and found that it doesn't have as much as it once thought.

  • For example, along 1,000 miles of Texas coast, the Corps claims its jurisdiction has shrunk to 1.8 million acres -- 60 percent of what it was in 2000.
  • In Barnwell, S.C., where the Corps once claimed jurisdiction over 76 acres of wetlands, it now claims 1.7 acres.
The corps has been trying to resolve questions left unanswered by a Supreme Court decision in 2001 --which of the tens of millions of acres of wetlands are eligible for federal protection as "waters of the United States"?

Environmental Protection Agency officials estimated the total amount of wetlands under federal protection at 100 million acres before the Supreme Court's ruling. Fewer than 20 million acres will be shaved off that estimate, experts say.

Source: Douglas Jehl, "Changes in Defining Wetland Anger Critics of Army Corps," New York Times, February 11, 2003.

For text
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/11/national/11WETL.html

For more on Public Lands
http://www.ncpa.org/iss/env/
12770 Coit Rd., Suite 800 - Dallas, TX 75251-1339 - 972/386-6272 - Fax 972/386-0924
601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 900 South Building - Washington, DC 20004 - 202/220-3082 - Fax 202/220-3096
Copyright © 2002 National Center for Policy Analysis - All rights reserved.