New wetlands rules will bring marginal regulatory improvement

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Federal regulatory changes for wetlands development activities announced Jan. 14 by the U.S. Army Corps of En-gineers will bring only marginal relief to builders and developers by slightly reducing the amount of red tape they face as they meet housing demand, according to a news release from the National As-sociation of Home Builders. The Corps' new, final Nationwide Permits regulations largely mirror existing NWPs and thus fail to provide a federal wetlands regulatory program with a streamlined permitting process as mandated by Congress under the Clean Water Act, NAHB stated. |ret||ret||tab|

The new permits also perpetuate other errors within the NWP program, and NAHB will continue the NWP lawsuit that it filed against the Corps in 2000. |ret||ret||tab|

"NAHB is pleased that, for the first time in the 25-year history of the program, the Corps' changes will not add significant restrictions to the use of NWPs," said NAHB President Bruce Smith. "However, we need considerable changes if we are to bring back the streamlined permitting process envisioned by Congress under the Clean Water Act. Our goal is to reinstitute a lawful and efficient wetlands regulatory framework." |ret||ret||tab|

At their inception in the 1970s, NWPs were intended to be an efficient and effective mechanism for U.S. wetlands regulation. But the CWA Section 404 program and the NWPs themselves have become increasingly more stringent and complex, and less useful for builders, while adding few, if any, tangible environmental benefits. |ret||ret||tab|

NAHB believes the NWP final rules announced yesterday will bring some improvement because they clarify certain requirements, provide more flexibility for the Corps' district engineers to make decisions based on what is best environmentally for their specific areas, and provide more certainty for developers and others. |ret||ret||tab|

"But the Corps still has not addressed the major problems with the program," he added. "With these new permits, the Corps has failed to re-establish the efficient permitting process for wetlands regulation that was mandated by Con-gress." |ret||ret||tab|

NAHB contends the Corps also has failed to provide sufficient scientific data to justify the restrictions on use of the NWPs. The Corps is extending its jurisdiction over areas and activities it has no legal authority to regulate as well, NAHB stated. |ret||ret||tab|

"By failing to fully consider and ad-dress our concerns, the Corps is merely making tiny steps the right direction in-stead of facing the issues head-on," Smith added. "We need meaningful re-form. We will press on in the courts, in Congress and with federal agencies to make sure that rational and efficient wetlands regulation is once again instituted. Until the implementation of an efficient wetlands regulatory system that balances environmental protection with regulatory efficiencies, builders will continue to contend with unwarranted regulations that unnecessarily increase housing costs and price home buyers out of the market, while providing negligible environmental benefits." [[In-content Ad]]