Issue a CWA Section 401 water quality certification rule

Research notes

• Same instrument as #1106, different ask: that item tracks the repeal-and-reissue of the water quality certification regulations, this one tracks whether the rule delivers the specific limits the Quote lists — a discharge-only approach, a scope confined to point sources discharging into navigable waters, water quality factors tied to specific Clean Water Act sections, and no speculative future-harm analysis.
• Rule text read 2026-09-06. Status unchanged. An earlier note said the rule text “could not be read — Federal Register full-text pages return an unblock page to automated fetches”. That is true of federalregister.gov and not of the document: the govinfo.gov copy (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-15/html/2026-00754.htm) opens in full, all 276 KB, a route no earlier search of this item had used. Read in full and searched for each of the Quote’s four limits.
• All four are present. Discharge-only scope and point-source framing: proposed §121.3, quoted in the event note, plus the preamble’s “not linked to a point source discharge into waters of the United States”. Water-quality factors tied to specific CWA sections: the preamble’s enumeration of §§301, 302, 303 and 306. No speculative future-harm analysis: the preamble’s criticism of certification decisions resting on “potentially speculative water quality impacts”. The proposal also rewrites §§121.5, 121.7, 121.10 and subpart B and adds a new §121.6 on withdrawal and resubmittal.
• So the earlier hedge — that the limits were “matters for the rule text rather than the abstract” — is resolved in favor of the rule, and this item is now the strongest-evidenced partial on its page. It stays partial because a proposal is not a rule: the ask is that EPA issue the rule, and comments closed 17 February 2026 with no final rule published.
• #1106 and #1107 were checked against this reading and neither moves on it — both already stand at partial on the same proposal, and reading the text confirms rather than changes what they rest on.

Resolved — Executive Order 14428 does not reach this ask (reviewed 2026-09-24; read 2026-09-23). Providing Meaningful Water Quality Improvements Through Collaboration and Oversight of Federal Support, signed 2026-09-16, published 2026-09-21 (91 FR 59975, FR 2026-19335), read in full at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-09-21/html/2026-19335.htm. A first look could read only its title and left it open against this item, #1106 and #1107.

It is a Chesapeake Bay order. Section 2 revokes Executive Order 13508 of 2009 (Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration), which the order says localities “erroneously relied on to impose rain taxes”. Section 3 directs six agencies to “focus any resources—fiscal or personnel—on more direct, on-the-ground projects” that reduce nutrient and sediment run-off into the Bay, and directs EPA to work with the six watershed States and the District of Columbia to “encourage the repeal or rescission of stormwater management fees”. It does not mention §401, water quality certification, “waters of the United States”, or any EPA rulemaking. This item stays partial (2026-01-15), resting on the January 2026 proposal, and no final §401 rule was found. #1106 and #1107 are not reached either.

Checked against the other Chapter 13 asks that first look named as the fallback — the grant asks (#1049, #1055, #1197, #1198) and state primacy (#1115) — and it reaches none of them: redirecting one watershed’s funding toward measurable projects is not a pause and review of grants over a threshold, not a political-affiliation review, and not primacy. A search of every ask on this site for “chesapeake”, “13508”, “stormwater” and “rain tax” returns nothing, so no ask on this site asks for what this order does.