CNN —
The Environmental Protection Agency and US Army on Tuesday released a new rule that dramatically shrinks what qualifies as federal waters, following a Supreme Court decision in May that rolled back protections for US wetlands.
The rule will invalidate an earlier definition of what constitutes the so-called waters of the United States, after the Supreme Court ruled Clean Water Act protections extend only to “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights.”
The decision excluded wetlands and smaller tributaries from being protected as they had been for the last 45 years. The new rule
