Republicans in Congress are pushing to block an Obama administration rule designed to protect the water quality in small streams, tributaries and wetlands before it goes into effect later this year.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved legislation on Wednesday, June 10 that would force the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw and rewrite rules issued in May that clarify which of those smaller bodies of water are regulated under the Clean Water Act. The EPA says the rule will protect the streams’ waters from pollution and development, and ensure clean drinking water for over 115 million Americans.
Republicans in Congress say the rules are federal overreach, would expand the current law and could be a costly and confusing burden for landowners and farmers. The House passed a bill last month that would also block the rules; legislation the White House threatened to veto. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has called the rule “a raw and tyrannical power grab.”
The Senate’s version of the measure would force the EPA to further consult with local governments on the rule, do a full economic analysis, and assess the impacts on small business owners.
The water rules “are sweeping and will create uncertainty in communities across America,” said Sen. John Barrasso from Wyoming, who sponsors the Senate bill.
The rules aim to clarify which smaller waterways such as streams and wetlands fall under federal protection, after two Supreme Court rulings left the reach of the Clean Water Act uncertain. Those decisions in 2001 and 2006 left 60 percent of the nation’s streams and millions of acres of wetlands without any clear federal protection, according to EPA, causing confusion for landowners and government officials.
The EPA says the waters affected by the new rules would be only those with a “direct and significant” connection to larger bodies of water downstream that are already protected—tributaries that show evidence of flowing water, for example. The rules would kick in and force a permitting process only if a business or landowner took steps to pollute or destroy covered waters.
Farmers and landowners have expressed concern that every stream, ditch and puddle on their private property could now be subject to federal oversight.
California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the top Democrat on the environmental panel, strongly opposed the measure, saying that “failing to protect the nation’s drinking water could put people in danger,” and calling the bill “a back door repeal of the Clean Water Act.”
Regulating aircraft emissions
The Obama administration is also expected to release a scientific finding that greenhouse gases from aircraft pose a risk to human health, paving the way for regulating emissions from the aviation industry.
An “endangerment finding” by the EPA would allow the administration to implement a global carbon dioxide emissions standard being developed by the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization.
Aviation accounted for 11 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from the transportations sector in 2010 in the US, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation.
The EPA’s ruling marks the first step toward regulating aviation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and aviation will become the latest industrial sector to be regulated under the Clean Air Act after cars, trucks, and large stationary sources like power plants.
But it came only after a federal court ruled in 2012 in favor of environmental groups that had sued the EPA, saying it was obligated to regulate aircraft emissions under the law.
“If you’re a big airline and you’re flying to 100 countries a day, then complying with all those different regimes is an administrative nightmare,” said Paul Steele, senior vice president at the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s main global organization.
But some environmental groups are concerned that the standard being discussed at ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, will do little to change the status quo since it would only apply to new and newly designed aircraft that will not be in operation for several years.
“The stringency being discussed [at ICAO] is such that existing aircraft are already meeting the standard they are weighing,” said Sarah Burt, an attorney at Earthjustice, one of several groups that sued the EPA to regulate aircraft. (With reports from Reuters, Associated Press, Huff Post)
(LA Weekend June 13 – 16, 2015 Sec. D pg.2)
