Bush Administration Decides to Take No Action on Wetlands Rules : Environment: Officials will not weaken current curbs on development. The move hands the controversial matter over to Clinton.

The Bush Administration, sidestepping one of the most controversial issues remaining on its calendar, has decided it will not act to weaken rules preventing development of the nation’s wetlands, a senior White House official said Friday.

The decision, made shortly after the Nov. 3 election, means that President Bush is handing over to the Clinton Administration the question of whether to change the definition of a wetland in a way that would allow more of them to be filled or otherwise developed.

The Democratic platform on which Bill Clinton ran was generally regarded as favorable to such environmental concerns as wetlands preservation.

“If we put through anything that was controversial, it would have been revisited by the next Administration, so why bother?” said the senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The decision has almost certainly averted a final battle between environmentalists within the Administration, led by William K. Reilly, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Vice President Dan Quayle, who had led efforts over the past two years to loosen the regulations concerning wetlands.

Quayle had taken up the fight on behalf of landowners, particularly farmers, who had argued that the existing regulations, approved in 1987, put too many limits on how they could use property that was considered an environmentally sensitive wetland.

For some, the question of federal protection of wetlands came to symbolize the debate over the environment in the 1992 presidential election. That was because Bush, in campaigning four years ago on the theme that he would be “the environmental President,” had pledged that there would be “no net loss” of wetlands during his Administration. The move to loosen the regulations for wetlands provided ammunition for critics questioning his commitment to the environment.

Areas considered wetlands can include places ranging from tidal marshes along the Atlantic Coast to a depression on the prairie that fills up with flood water in rainy seasons. The marshes provide homes to a vast variety of birds, filter contaminants from water and protect higher land from floods. The prairie depression is considered crucial because half of America’s waterfowl breed in them.

Under existing regulations, enormous areas could be considered wetlands that must be protected, including half of Vermont, 40% of Maryland’s eastern shore and much of suburban Houston, for example.

Had the Bush Administration acted, it would have prepared a new definition of what constitutes a wetland. The new wording would have gone into a manual used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether waterlogged lands can be filled for planting, building or other uses under permits granted to farmers, developers and other landowners.

The Administration last tackled the issue in August, 1991, sharply revising the wetlands definition. Critics said it would open millions of acres to development. The draft was rescinded after the Corps of Engineers agreed with environmentalists that as much as half the nation’s wetlands would lose federal protection.

Inherent in any decision on wetlands is a philosophical dispute over the importance of economic development versus the environment. When he assumes the presidency, Clinton risks alienating an important element either way he decides--either environmentalists, who favored him this year, or agricultural interests and developers, who are certain to be wooed by the Republican presidential candidate in four years.

“Let them have the headache,” said the White House official, looking forward to handing the matter over to the Clinton team.

On the other hand, had Quayle been able to secure relaxed regulations, such a change might have won him supporters in the business and agriculture communities should he seek the GOP presidential nomination in 1996.

The Bush Administration last wrestled with the wetlands issue in August, deciding then to wait until after the election. At the time, Bush could ill afford to alienate any potential supporters.

“After the election, we realized it wasn’t going to be worth the trouble,” the White House official said. He added that the issue “was of sufficient visibility that it would be reviewed by the new Administration.”

Critics of relaxed rules fear that easing the curbs would open millions of acres to development, including such sensitive protected areas as the Florida Everglades and the Alaska tundra.

Even under strict rules promulgated at the end of the Ronald Reagan Administration, the nation has been losing 290,000 acres of wetlands each year through natural and human actions. There are approximately 100 million acres of wetlands in the United States, compared with about 250 million acres of wetlands before it was fully settled.