President Donald Trump has signed an executive order rescinding a 17-year-old directive that established coordinated federal leadership over Chesapeake Bay restoration, drawing swift condemnation from Maryland’s full congressional delegation.
The order, titled “Providing Meaningful Water Quality Improvements Through Collaboration and Oversight of Federal Support,” repeals Executive Order 13508, the 2009 Obama-era directive that had directed federal agencies to coordinate Bay restoration, make fuller use of Clean Water Act authorities, and pursue science-based, publicly accountable cleanup strategies across the six-state watershed.
What the order does
Rather than the broad federal coordination structure it replaces, the new order directs the EPA and five other federal agencies — the Departments of War, Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security, along with the Department of Commerce — to assess current Bay support efforts and redirect funding toward “direct, on-the-ground projects, in areas of highest need” with measurable results, rather than what the administration calls administrative overhead. The order also directs agencies to coordinate with the watershed’s seven jurisdictions to review the financial burden of local stormwater fees — commonly called “rain taxes” — and to “encourage the repeal or rescission” of such fees.
The administration’s fact sheet argues the 2009 order was “outdated and misguided,” citing “vague and confusing federal requirements” that it says enabled stormwater fees costing residents and small businesses “hundreds of dollars” annually. The White House also credited its restructuring of the Chesapeake Bay Program with cutting administrative costs by nearly $1 million in fiscal year 2026, and pointed to Bay restoration progress it says came despite the old framework: as of 2025, watershed jurisdictions had met 100% of sediment reduction goals, 90% of phosphorus goals and 57% of nitrogen goals, with the Bay’s 2026 dead zone projected to be among the smallest since 1985.
Maryland delegation’s response
The full Maryland congressional delegation — Democratic U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, and Reps. Steny Hoyer, Kweisi Mfume, Jamie Raskin, Glenn Ivey, Sarah Elfreth, April McClain Delaney and Johnny Olszewski, along with Republican Rep. Andy Harris — released a joint statement opposing the repeal.
“The Chesapeake Bay and its health are vital to lives and livelihoods across our state and the greater region,” the delegation said. “Now more than ever, we need continued federal partnership and support for Chesapeake Bay restoration, not efforts to roll back all the progress we’ve made. … This decision is shortsighted and harmful to our communities. Make no mistake: the Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure. And we will continue to fight for it.”
Chesapeake Bay Foundation President and CEO Hilary Harp Falk was more pointed. “The Trump Administration has repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to slash funding for Chesapeake Bay restoration. Now they are trying to destroy Bay restoration by executive order,” Falk said, adding that Congress has “repeatedly rejected the Trump Administration’s efforts to roll back investment in the Bay” and calling on state and local leaders to “hold firm on their commitments.”
Local angle: the ‘rain tax’ fight already played out in Maryland
The stormwater fees the order targets have a long history in Maryland specifically. A 2012 state law required the 10 most populous Maryland jurisdictions with federal MS4 stormwater permits — including Charles County — to adopt stormwater remediation fees to fund runoff-pollution controls. That statewide mandate was itself repealed in 2015 under then-Gov. Larry Hogan, making the fees optional and left to each county’s discretion. Charles County has continued to operate its own Watershed Protection and Restoration Fund since then; Calvert and St. Mary’s counties were never subject to the original state mandate and do not have comparable fees.
The repeal comes after Trump’s first term saw repeated attempts to sharply cut Chesapeake Bay Program funding — including a proposed 91% cut in the fiscal 2021 budget — that were rejected by Congress each time. More recently, federal Bay cleanup funding had been restored after a period of disruption.
