Today the Administration released its draft strategy for the Chesapeake Bay. Public comment runs through January 8, and the final strategy is due in May.
There's a lot to read. But here's one point off the bat that's of note:
Regulatory authority will be expanded to increase accountability for pollution and strengthen permits for animal agriculture, urban/suburban stormwater and new sources. . . . EPA will also initiate rulemaking to increase coverage and raise standards for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), municipal stormwater, and new dischargers of pollution.
EPA is taking a step in the right direction with these proposed steps to address runoff from agricultural pollution sources. Right now the EPA has the authority, under the Clean Water Act, to start tackling this problem. But EPA's approach to CAFOs (factory farms), as we’ve said before, has been frustrating for many years. CAFOs are covered by the CWA, but EPA has historically not used that authority. The situation is so bad that, last year, the Government Accountability Office found that “no federal agency collects accurate and consistent data on the number, size, and location of CAFOs,” even though “large farms can produce more raw waste than the human population of a large city.” A genuine commitment to expand the scope of CAFO regulation is heartening.
Another broad point is worth making: Bay restoration has foundered for many years because EPA has refused to hold the states accountable for their actions, hiding its head in the sand (or underwater, as it were) with the states just as it has with CAFOs and nonpoint source runoff. With this report, EPA has signaled it plans to take a much stronger leadership role in cleaning up the Bay, and that it plans to hold the states to their pollution reduction targets. Such leadership is desperately needed from EPA, and, indeed, the Obama Administration generally, because the states won’t do the necessary heavy-lifting otherwise.
We’ll be reading the plan closely over the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
See also our previous "EPA's Chesapeake Bay Reports: A First Look" and "Reasonably Assured? The Chesapeake Bay and Reasonable Assurances."
Showing 2,821 results
Shana Campbell Jones | November 9, 2009
Today the Administration released its draft strategy for the Chesapeake Bay. Public comment runs through January 8, and the final strategy is due in May. There’s a lot to read. But here’s one point off the bat that’s of note: Regulatory authority will be expanded to increase accountability for pollution and strengthen permits for animal […]
Alejandro Camacho | November 9, 2009
Though few agencies or legislatures have begun to actually develop programs for cultivating adaptation to climate change, at least discussions on climate change adaptation are starting to take place. Unfortunately, as I detail in a forthcoming article, adaptation is still being given short shrift at local, state and federal levels of government, and those who […]
Ben Somberg | November 6, 2009
For an analysis of the news from California this week — where the legislature passed a group of bills Wednesday on water protection — do check out Richard Frank on Legal Planet, who looks at the good and the less-than-good. It commits substantial public funding and commitment to desperately needed Delta ecosystem restoration. The bill […]
Amy Sinden | November 5, 2009
Cass Sunstein had barely begun settling in to his new position as Administrator of OMB’s Office of Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in September, when OIRA released a draft of OMB’s 2009 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations. Today marks the deadline for submitting comments to OMB on the draft, and I […]
Alice Kaswan | November 5, 2009
The latest version of the Senate climate bill, released by Senator Boxer on Friday, October 30, retains EPA’s authority to establish meaningful facility regulations under the Clean Air Act (CAA) while freeing EPA of the obligation to implement CAA provisions that are ill-suited to controlling greenhouse gases (GHG). (Section 128(g): Amendments Clarifying Regulation of Greenhouse […]
James Goodwin | November 4, 2009
Last month the National Research Council (NRC) released Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use. Properly understood, the NRC report is an admirable attempt to bring the consequences of energy use into sharp focus by putting those consequences into terms that are readily understandable by the general public. The NRC recognizes […]
Ben Somberg | November 4, 2009
CPR Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies has a piece on the Atlantic’s food website today — “Saving Seafood From Extinction” — on how the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is making a last-ditch effort to overhaul the nation’s devastated fisheries. The agency’s new regulations — including lower catch limites — have faced some opposition, but the choice […]
Daniel Farber | November 3, 2009
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. Apparently, substantially safer designs for nuclear reactors are now available. But the safe storage and disposal of nuclear waste is a significant challenge and a yet unresolved problem. Presently, waste is stored at over a hundred facilities across the country, within seventy-five miles of the homes of 161 million people. The […]
Matthew Freeman | November 2, 2009
A little bragging is in order this morning. Last week, CPR Member Scholars Tom McGarity and Wendy Wagner won the University of Texas’s Hamilton Book Author Award for their book, Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research. The award is given to the author(s) of what is judged the best book by University of Texas […]