Now is the time to strengthen, not rollback, environmental protections

Do you remember the growing hole in the earth’s ozone layer? Or acid rain? Do you remember when bald eagles were close to extinction because there were less than 500 breeding pairs left in the wild? Unless you’re of a certain age, you may not remember those environmental crises at all, because today we’ve come a long way toward solving them. Thanks to the power of scientific discovery coupled with collaboration by local and federal government, non-profit and community organizations, the private sector, and public support, deteriorating stratospheric ozone has become a chapter in the history books.

Acid rain, which was largely caused by sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitric oxide/nitrogen dioxide (NO_x) emissions from burning coal and fuel, was dramatically reduced by the implementation of the Clean Air Act. And following protection by the Endangered Species Act, today there are over 300,000 bald eagles in the lower 48 states, with more than 70,000 nesting pairs.

We’ve made a lot of progress on other ecological and human health issues, including air pollution, water quality, and habitat protections, but the recent rollbacks to environmental regulations proposed by the EPA threaten to reverse those gains.

Air quality has come a long way

In the past few decades, the U.S. has seen significant improvements in air quality due to the controls on emissions put into place by the Clean Air Act and enforced by the EPA. SO₂ and NO_x are harmful chemicals released by sources such as vehicles and power plants. The concentration of these chemicals in our air has been declining since air quality regulations led to new technologies, such as scrubbers and catalytic converters. As a result, emissions have plummeted by up to 95% since 1980.

Although many cities still do not meet air quality standards for concentrations of NO_x and ozone, air quality is significantly better than the days when a thick, impenetrable smog blanketed most major cities, leading to hundreds of deaths during pollution events.

Environmental protections needed now more than ever

Notably, some pollutants, especially particulates (PM2.5) from wildfires, have recently started increasing again as extreme weather events brought hotter and more intense fires to multiple areas around the country. So now is the time to finish the job and bring air pollutant concentrations back to safe levels for everyone. It is not the time to roll back controls on vehicle and industrial emissions, slash funding for wildfire management, and close federal research labs.

Reversing habitat protections, such as the proposal to redefine “the waters of the United States” (WOTUS) in ways that will exclude most wetlands, will also have devastating consequences for our most basic environmental protections, such as access to clean water.

Wetlands are some of the most productive and diverse ecosystems on earth, removing pollutants from water, mitigating flooding, and providing habit for a variety of species. Almost half of threatened and endangered species use wetlands as habitat for at least a part of their life cycle. In addition, wetlands reduce sedimentation from our waterways, remove organic and inorganic pollutants, and reduce the impacts of both droughts and floods. This is why the Clean Water Act protected wetlands and all WOTUS by prohibiting dredging or filling without a permit.

Since the 1780s, the U.S. has lost about half of its historical wetlands. However, the rate of loss has slowed markedly since the Clean Water Act and the Swampbuster disincentive provision of the Farm Bill were passed in the 1970s and 1980s. We haven’t yet achieved the goal of no net loss of wetlands set out by President George H.W. Bush, but the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Sackett vs. EPA will set us back significantly further.

This ruling limited the definition of WOTUS to “geographic[al] features that are described in ordinary parlance as ‘streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes’ and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.”

This new definition, which excludes most wetlands hydrologically connected to but not “adjacent” to surface waters, makes little scientific sense. It ignores basic hydrology and ecology as argued by an amicus brief filed by 12 scientific societies representing more than 125,000 biologists, ecologists, hydrologists, and fisheries scientists.

They explained that many wetlands are directly navigable, as required by the Clean Water Act, or they contribute significantly to the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of navigable waters, per the purpose of the Act. Nevertheless, the EPA and the Army Corp of Engineers have issued a pre-publication notice of changes to the definition of WOTUS that would dramatically reduce wetland protections and allow many of America’s remaining wetlands to be destroyed.

Fighting for environmental protections

NWF is directly addressing these proposed changes throughout our many conservation, climate, and justice programs, not only with a goal of preventing rollbacks of current environmental protections, but with the much larger ambition of fulfilling all of our mission to ensure that wildlife and people thrive. This means working not just to halt but to reverse environmental harm, injustice, biodiversity loss, and climate change.

We can learn from both the successes and the losses of the past by relying on sound science—including participatory science and Indigenous knowledges—and leveraging the power and voices of a national network of affiliates, members, and supporters.

You can help by standing up for science, protecting public lands, supporting wetland protections, and learning more about why we work to support and elevate communities on the frontlines of habitat loss, climate change, and the worst sources of pollution.

NWF believes that our nation’s wildlife, fish, plants, healthy waters, clean air, and public lands are a right, not a privilege, of all people who call America home. Therefore, we also believe that government has a foundational duty to conserve and steward these public trust resources for all, including future generations, using the best available science and providing robust financial resources.

In our 89-year history, this approach has helped foster huge wins for people and wildlife, informed by sound science and the ability of democratic decision-making to make major advances in conservation a reality. We know this is possible because of what we’ve achieved so far, and because we have the knowledge and potential to achieve so much more.