… [F]ederal policy changes are forcing California leaders to get creative to protect our shared natural resources and public health. The Supreme Court’s now-infamous Sackett v. EPA decision dramatically reduced the reach of the Clean Water Act, leaving many formerly protected waterways and wetlands much harder to protect from pollution, especially in the West. Fortunately, we have leadership in California to ensure this seismic disruption in policy is muted by a response that could expedite how state law will capture the same protections that federal clean water permits once did. SB 601 (Allen), also known as The Right to Clean Water Act, attempts to piece back together the regulatory system established under the federal Clean Water Act over the past five decades.
–Written by Martha Guzman, who was the US Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 Administrator from December 2021 to January 2025 and the Deputy Legislative Affairs Secretary in the Office of the California Governor from 2011 – 2016.