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KEY POINTS
New legislation proposed in Michigan would change the definition of state wetlands to more closely align with federal standards.
Critics of the bill warn that hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands could lose protections, leaving habitat and waterways vulnerable to degradation.
Supporters say current wetland policies are costly and confusing for landowners.
LANSING, Mich. — A bill introduced last month in the Michigan House proposes changing the state’s definition of “wetland” to more closely align with recently narrowed federal standards.
The bill’s authors say it caters directly to residents, farmers, and developers faced with “confusing, inconsistent, and overly burdensome” requirements for filling wetlands. But the legislation’s language may also undermine Michigan’s wetland protections — which are among the strongest in the country — and leave thousands of acres of habitat vulnerable to degradation.
The change would weaken a 1979 state law that currently gives Michigan a broader definition of “wetlands” than the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and which has helped curb state wetland loss over the past four decades. The state is one of only three allowed under the Clean Water Act to have regulatory oversight of wetland permitting within its borders.
“Over and over, I’ve heard from property owners who did everything they were told to do,” says state Rep. David Martin, a Republican and the bill’s primary sponsor, in a statement. “They paid for studies. They followed local zoning. Then the state shows up, tells them their own research doesn’t count, and threatens fines. That is not how government should operate.”
House Bill 5536 would align the state’s consideration of “wetlands” with that outlined by the federal Clean Water Act, which has recently experienced notable cuts to its authority to consider many wetland ecosystems as “Waters of the United States.”
The landmark Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision in 2023 ruled that the Clean Water Act’s protections only apply to bodies of water that maintain a continuous surface connection to traditional, navigable waters — a rigid order that is incompatible with the naturally fluctuating connectivity of many crucial watersheds.
In November, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed adopting this precedent into federal code, a move that leaves millions of wetlands around the country vulnerable to filling. Per HB 5536, any parcel of land considered a wetland in Michigan must be both “adjacent to a water of the United States” and have a “continuous surface connection with a water of the United States,” unless it is separately classified as a rare or imperiled wetland.
“The real-world impact is that it would remove protections from a large number of wetlands that help protect our homes, drinking water, ecosystems, and communities by providing natural buffering and filtration,” writes Carolan Sonderegge, the policy director of Flow Water Advocates, a Michigan-based nonprofit, in testimony in opposition of the bill. “Significantly, HB 5536 would exclude many wetlands that do not have a continuous surface connection to lakes or streams. But science tells us that these wetlands are intrinsically connected to groundwater.”
The proposition comes at a time when Michigan’s wetlands are especially vulnerable to development. According to a 2025 Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) analysis, the harshest interpretation of the recently narrowed Clean Water Act would cause Michigan to lose federal protections for as much as 95 percent of its more than 3.8 million acres of regulatory wetlands. The Upper Peninsula’s Delta County, which contains 210,000 acres of wetlands, is one of Michigan’s most at-risk communities to these rollbacks.
Meanwhile, recent extreme weather events underscore wetlands’ proven ability to absorb and filter excess water, protecting the health of Michigan’s 46,000 inland lakes and reservoirs and more than 76,000 miles of rivers and streams from runoff pollution. Historic flooding across Michigan in the first half of April left many communities contending with half a foot of rain in just two weeks. Underwriting has also taken a hit, with the new state budget for 2026 cutting state Department of Natural Resources funding to acquire and restore wetland areas by two-thirds, from $3 million to $1 million.
In a statement, Rep. Martin emphasized that the bill does not intend to weaken environmental protections, but rather make projects for “everyday property owners” easier and less expensive.
“When the rules are unclear, inconsistent, or depend on who shows up from the state, people lose trust,” Rep Martin says. “HB 5536 fixes that by aligning our definition with federal law and establishing clear criteria property owners can understand before they invest time and money.”
Republicans in the Michigan House Agriculture Committee say the bill, if passed, would also be welcomed by farmers who have expressed frustrations about how wetlands on their properties are defined, and have been denied loans and federal grants after receiving filling violations.
“Just an accusation of a wetlands [violation] is kind of like a black eye that sticks with you forever,” state Rep. Gregory Alexander, a Republican, said in a January hearing. “We’re kicking people out of programs because the wetlands police are, I feel, extremely excessive.”
The bill remains under consideration by the House Natural Resources and Tourism Committee.