Trump revokes 2009 Chesapeake Bay order and redirects federal cleanup funding

President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14428 on September 16, 2026, revoking the 2009 Chesapeake Bay restoration order and redirecting federal support toward projects that directly reduce nutrient and sediment runoff. The order, titled “Providing Meaningful Water Quality Improvements Through Collaboration and Oversight of Federal Support,” was published in the Federal Register of Monday, September 21, 2026 (Vol. 91, No. 181, Presidential Documents, pp. 59975–59977) as FR Doc. 2026-19335. It also instructs the Environmental Protection Agency to work with seven watershed jurisdictions to encourage repeal of local stormwater “rain taxes.”

The order is issued under the authority of the Clean Water Act of 1972, as amended (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.), and states that governmental actors managing the Chesapeake Bay “should prioritize environmental protection and economic objectives.” It revokes Executive Order 13508 of May 12, 2009 (Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration), which the new text says had been in effect for 17 years and imposed a broad mandate on states and municipalities “without providing clarity on how to implement that order’s requirements.”

The White House argues that this lack of clarity produced harmful economic effects: many localities adopted stormwater management fees, commonly called “rain taxes,” that impose hundreds of dollars in annual burdens on residents and small businesses “with little to no measurable benefits” to the bay or to those residents.

Federal agencies ordered to refocus resources

Section 3 directs six federal officials — the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency — to assess their agencies’ current support for bay health and concentrate fiscal and personnel resources on “more direct, on-the-ground projects, in areas of highest need.”

All agencies that fund bay health must redirect money away from activities that do not generate measurable progress toward projects that directly reduce nutrient and sediment runoff into the bay and its tributaries. Strategies must be grounded in objective metrics and documented performance indicators, such as reductions in sediment, phosphorus and nitrogen loads.

EPA to coordinate with states on stormwater fees

Under section 3(b), the Environmental Protection Agency must coordinate with Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, West Virginia and the District of Columbia to:

• assess the additional financial burdens that stormwater management fees place on residents of these jurisdictions;
• explore initiatives that advance the order without increasing costs on individual residents;
• take measures to encourage the repeal or rescission of stormwater fees imposed by states or localities and funded by their residents.

Progress cited as justification

The order cites as justification the watershed’s collective results as of 2025: the seven jurisdictions met 100 percent of their sediment reduction goal, 90 percent of their phosphorus goal and 57 percent of their nitrogen goal. It says these reductions are improving bay health, have restored thousands of acres of reefs, and remain consistent with the 2025 revised Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, to which the federal government and the agencies named in section 3 are signatories.

The order also notes that in 2026 scientists from the College of William & Mary, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, FlowWest and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science reported that the bay’s annual dead zone is projected to be among the smallest since 1985, about 31 percent below the long-term average.

General provisions

Section 4 states that nothing in the order impairs the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the functions of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative or legislative proposals. Implementation is subject to the availability of appropriations, and the order creates no right or benefit enforceable against the United States. The costs of publication are borne by the Environmental Protection Agency.

For the watershed’s farmers, municipalities and environmental groups, the order shifts the terms of a 17-year federal framework: oversight now turns on measurable runoff reductions and on rolling back the stormwater fees that fund local infrastructure, a change to be negotiated between the Environmental Protection Agency and seven jurisdictions rather than through the revoked 2009 mandate.

Source: Federal Register, Vol. 91, No. 181, 21 September 2026, Presidential Documents, pp. 59975–59977 (official reference: FR Doc. 2026-19335).