Comment Letter: September 2026 Proposed Changes to Waters of the United States (WOTUS)
On September 9th 2026, the Trump Administration published a proposed supplemental change to their November 2025 proposal to change the definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The September 2026 proposal reduces federal protection of wetlands and streams to the bare minimum. Overall, we feel that the narrowing goes too far as Congress would not have gone through the trouble of passing and revising the Clean Water Act just to cover a sliver of wetlands. Secondly, our own analysis shows the extent of the impact of the proposal for freshwater wetlands in states that do not have their own wetland law:
A decrease in the acres of freshwater wetland impacts needing a permit of 3,046 acres/yr2
A loss in jobs tied to compensatory mitigation that used to go along with those permits: 3,406 jobs
Increased flood damages / insurance payouts associated with losing wetlands: $8 million - $27 million of flood protection lost over 50 years from just one year of impacts that no longer need permitting. For five years of permitting, the amount increases to $38 million - $126 million.
The rule should not be finalized without considering comments on and fully implementing the analytical approaches outlined in the Regulatory Impact Analysis. See our dashboard that contrasts baseline protections to this September 2026 proposal (as well as the November 2025 proposal). The dashboard includes methodologies and assumptions used in our analysis.
