New White House Water Resource Guidelines Are Not "Rules"

Author Kelli Barrett writing for Ecosystem Marketplace summarizes the new White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) recent updates to the 1983 Principles and Guidelines on Water and Land Related Resources and Implementation Studies. The updates focus on an ecosystem services approach to the evaluation process, while previous guidelines focused almost exclusively on economic factors.

“The Principles and Requirements for Federal Investments in Water Resources, or Proposed Guidance for short, were released in March of this year,” writes Barrett. “The guidelines are meant to instruct federal water and land related investments in projects ensuring that the agencies’ actions contribute to economic development while preserving the environment…While the Proposed Guidance do represent a possible shift in policy that recognizes the value of nature as an important component in economic development, it’s important to note that they are guidelines and not the rule for federal water resources investments. It’s unsure how effective they will be in moving toward a more balanced investment.”

Ecosystem services like water filtration, nutrient regulation and mitigation of floods and droughts can be difficult to quantify which is one reason why investment decisions have been mostly based on economic gains. The report argues that measuring water resources investments purely on economic gains no longer reflects national needs and the integrated ecosystem services approach will lead to more socially beneficial investments.