As the world remembers the late President George Herbert Walker Bush this week, it has been difficult for historians and journalists to list all the many accomplishments of his one-term Administration.
The Bush legacy will include important environmental achievements for water and air.
The vital directive first adopted by George HW Bush and the U.S. Congress, instructing the U.S. Army Corps to pursue the goal of “no overall net loss” for the nation's water resources (Section 307, Water Resources Development Act 1990) remains the backbone of the permitting program under the Clean Water Act through today.
The graphic timeline below traces the origins of wetland permitting and wetland mitigation in the United States from the original 1890s River and Harbors Act and concludes with the 2008 Mitigation Rule (importantly adopted during the George W. Bush Administration).
A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report is shining a spotlight on a concern many in the mitigation banking industry have raised for years: inconsistent implementation of the federal compensatory mitigation program across U.S. Army Corps of Engineers districts. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, the Corps requires compensatory mitigation when permitted
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For too long, environmental policy debates have been framed around a false and unproductive premise: that economic growth and environmental protection are inherently at odds. This mindset is not only outdated—it is actively harmful to both outcomes. Mitigation banking offers a clear path forward. By design, it aligns economic incentives with ecological restoration, proving that well-functioning
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