Wetlands Compromise Would Drop Areas From U.S. Protection : Environment: Critics say Bush Administration bowed to special-interest groups, including developers and oil companies.

After months of interagency squabbling, the Bush Administration has agreed on new rules defining “wetlands” that would drop millions of disputed acres from federal protection, officials said Friday.

Vice President Dan Quayle worked out the compromise with Environmental Protection Agency administrator William K. Reilly, one Administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Reilly had wanted less extensive changes in the current guidelines, the official said.

The new criteria were described as “strict and fair” in a memorandum drawn up by Quayle’s staff and dated Wednesday. It said they will “prevent non-wetlands from falling into the regulatory net.”

The term wetlands refers to swamps, bogs, marshes, prairie potholes and the like, land once considered worthless unless drained for farming or development. Environmentalists say wetlands are now recognized as vital for water quality, wildlife habitat and protection from flood damage.

The new criteria have been debated between the EPA and officials from several other agencies for months, with the dispute eventually referred to Quayle’s Council on Competitiveness.

Linda Winter, a wetlands expert at the National Wildlife Federation, accused the Bush Administration of sacrificing environmental protection under political pressure.

“I think it’s outrageous. Clearly, people who don’t know anything about the science of how to define wetlands are making these decisions for political reasons,” she said. “They’re bowing to pressure from special-interest groups, like the oil and gas industry, real estate agents and the farm bureau.”

The National Wetlands Coalition, which represents developers, oil companies, municipalities and other landowners affected by the rules, said the Administration “is moving in the direction we would advocate” but urged more action to make wetlands regulation less burdensome.

“The current regulatory program is far too stiff and inflexible,” said Robert Szabo, the coalition’s executive director. “We advocate changes that would refocus the program away from just stopping things.”

Proposals gathering support in Congress would eliminate the EPA’s role in federal wetlands protection and establish three categories of wetlands, with weaker protection for those properties considered less environmentally valuable.

EPA officials said Reilly was pushing for limited changes in the wetlands definition process, partly in hopes of taking the steam out of the more sweeping changes proposed in Congress.

Szabo, Winter and EPA officials all said it was difficult to judge how many acres would be affected by the Administration’s new rules, which are expected to be published for public comment later this month.

“Nobody knows what the numbers are, nobody,” Szabo said. “I doubt that anybody knows if this is a 10% reduction or a 50% reduction.”

About half of the 200 million acres of wetlands that originally existed in the continental United States have been lost in 200 years, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service estimate.

The service says about 290,000 acres a year have been lost in recent years, down from about 450,000 acres a year from the 1950s to 1970s.