Momentum for Chesapeake Bay restoration has advanced significantly in the past two years, shaped by the combination of President Obama’s Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration Executive Order and the EPA’s Bay-wide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process. These federal initiatives, taken in partnership with the Bay states, required the Bay states and the District of Columbia to submit Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs) to demonstrate how they will meet the pollution targets in the applicable TMDLs.
In August, CPR sent the Chesapeake Bay watershed jurisdictions (Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) metrics by which our panel of water quality experts would judge the strength of the plans; we also submitted comments to the states in November on their draft plans. The states’ final plans were submitted to EPA in November and December.
The state plans fail to provide a specific roadmap for restoring the Bay, CPR says today in Missing the Mark in the Chesapeake Bay: A Report Card for the Phase I Watershed Implementation Plans (press release). The report was written by CPR Member Scholars William Andreen, Robert Glicksman, and Rena Steinzor, and CPR executive director Shana Jones and policy analyst Yee Huang.
Our report found that the state plans all underperformed, to varying degrees, on the two primary areas for evaluation: transparency of information and strength of program design. While improvements from the drafts, the final plans were light on providing specific commitments for actions needed to achieve the required pollution reductions, and generally did not pledge dedicated funding for the proposed programs. The plans generally did not establish a baseline for existing programs’ effectiveness to allow the public to monitor future performance in implementing the pollution reduction controls.
Here's the report, along with the complete detailed assessment for each of the jurisdictions: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
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Ben Somberg | January 25, 2011
Momentum for Chesapeake Bay restoration has advanced significantly in the past two years, shaped by the combination of President Obama’s Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration Executive Order and the EPA’s Bay-wide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process. These federal initiatives, taken in partnership with the Bay states, required the Bay states and the District of […]
Daniel Farber | January 24, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. In his book Bayou Farewell, Mike Tidwell tells some haunting stories about the rapid disappearance of the Louisiana coast from his time with Cajun fisherman. Here’s one story: “We all pile into the crab boat and Tim tells his son to head down the bayou. A few hundred feet away . […]
Ben Somberg | January 19, 2011
In case anyone thought the White House would seek additional appropriations to hire new agency staffers to do the regulatory look back work, it sure sounds like a no. Here’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Cass Sunstein speaking on Federal News Radio: “Agencies are in the best position to make choices about which […]
Rena Steinzor | January 18, 2011
Sixteen months ago, President Obama stood in the well of Congress and issued a ringing call for a progressive vision of government. Working to persuade Members of Congress to adopt health care reform, he said that “large-heartedness…is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people’s shoes. A recognition that we are all […]
Rena Steinzor | January 18, 2011
President Obama’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning touted EPA’s “deregulation” of the artificial sweetener saccharin as a positive development for America. Inadvertently, the president made EPA look silly for having regulated the stuff in the first place. The use of this example was also unfortunate because EPA’s decision to deregulate had little consequence. Here’s the […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | January 14, 2011
Republican legislators have been scheming for years about ways that they can slow down, if not stop, needed health, safety and environmental regulations. But their latest effort, though creative, is perhaps their most ill-conceived. They’re calling it “The REINS Act” (in the last Congress, H.R. 3765 sponsored by Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY), S. 3826 sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)), […]
Holly Doremus | January 13, 2011
Cross-posted from Legal Planet. If EPA is afraid of the new Congress, you wouldn’t know it from today’s news. Assistant Administrator Peter Silva issued the Obama administration’s first veto of a Clean Water Act section 404 permit. This veto, which has been working its way through the cumbersome process for more than a year (see […]
Alexandra Klass | January 13, 2011
The report of the President’s Gulf Oil Spill Commission answered some questions and raised others. But one thing still puzzles: Why didn’t the Gulf Oil Spill start a national conversation about our dependence on oil development and the need for renewable energy? At first, it appeared it might, but the focus quickly turned to reforming […]
Rena Steinzor | January 11, 2011
Despite its strong condemnation of the industry-wide problems that caused last year’s BP Oil Spill, the report today from the President’s commission waivered on a crucial subject: it significantly embraced the essentially self-regulatory British “Safety Case” model of regulation that industry and its consultants have been promoting. So while the commission has done some terrific work, one […]