13. Environmental Protection Agency · Notable
Issue an executive order expediting state primacy in CWA and SDWA programs
Printed page 430 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“An executive order requiring EPA to find avenues and expedite the process for states obtaining primacy in available CWA and SDWA programs. This order would require coordination with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior.”
What has happened
- Partially done
The fourth state got primacy without the order. EPA approved Colorado's application for Class VI underground injection control primacy under Safe Drinking Water Act section 1422, so the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission now issues and enforces Class VI permits for geologic carbon sequestration. EPA remains the permitting authority on Indian lands in the state. That makes four states in twenty months taking over an SDWA program. The gaps are the same as before: no executive order, no Clean Water Act program delegated, and no coordination with the Army Corps or Interior.
- Partially done
The order was never signed, and states got primacy anyway. EPA approved West Virginia for Class VI underground injection control primacy in February 2025, Arizona for Class I through VI in September and Texas for Class VI in November, with Colorado proposed in March 2026 — four states in fourteen months taking over a Safe Drinking Water Act program. What is missing is the instrument the Quote names: no executive order requires EPA to find avenues and expedite primacy, no Clean Water Act program was delegated in the window, and nothing coordinates the effort with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- No executive order exists. Neither the Federal Register presidential documents nor the White House presidential actions we keep and search carry an order or memorandum on state primacy in Clean Water Act or Safe Drinking Water Act programs; the permitting orders of the window — data center permitting, permitting technology — do not reach primacy, and neither names the Army Corps or the Interior Department in this connection.
- partial because the ask was achieved by other means: the substance the order was meant to produce — states taking over federal programs — happened repeatedly without it. Class VI underground injection control primacy is a Safe Drinking Water Act program, and EPA approved three states for it in ten months, with a fourth proposed on 2026-03-19.
- Reviewed 2026-10-12. Colorado’s final approval (91 FR 64780, FR 2026-20846) completes the proposal of 2026-03-19, and it gets an event of its own. The rule was opened and read: SDWA section 1422 primacy for Class VI wells to the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, EPA keeping Indian lands, effective 2026-11-12 (promulgated for judicial purposes 2026-10-13). It also codifies earlier non-substantial changes to Colorado’s Class II program.
- Not done: the named instrument does not exist, no Clean Water Act program primacy was granted in the window, and nothing coordinates the process with the Corps and Interior as the Quote asks.
- Action
- issue
- Object
- executive order on state primacy in CWA and SDWA programs
- ID
- 1115