Congressional Dirty Water Act Passes the House Polluter's Wish list included in House Budget
House majority declares all out attack on the public's right to clean water, breathable air, and our children's health. First with the passage of House Resolution 2018 and now with the Interior Appropriations bill HR 2584.
The Clean Water Act is under attack. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 2018, the Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011 or better known as the Dirty Water Act. This bill seeks to dangerously undermine the Federal Clean WAter Act (CWA). If approved by the Senate, this destructive bill will directly and adversely affect public health, the economy, and the environment. This tragic vote to support HR 2018 was political posturing to satisfy powerful lobbying interests such as the coal industry and, to a lesser extent, agriculture.
Under the CWA, one of the Nation’s most successful and effective environmental laws, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acts to ensure safe levels of water quality across the country by providing at least a national level of minimal water quality protections. Using its oversight authority, the EPA reviews and modifies state water pollution control decisions to assure they reflect advancements in technology, modern scientific understanding, the law, and protection of downstream water users in neighboring states. H.R. 2018 removes these standard protections, and rolls back key safety provisions of the CWA that have been the underpinning of 40 years of progress in making the Nation’s water swimmable, fishable and drinkable.
The primary reason for the CWA, adopted in 1972, was that states were not adequately protecting public health in our waters. H.R. 2018 allows states to return to “the good old days” and approve weaker water quality standards, while removing the authority of the EPA to reject those standards when they are not protective of public health. We know all too well the consequences of the power and political influence of big industry and development interests wield on State and local government. Without EPA oversight authority to ensure safe levels of water quality are met in our waterways, it would be a race to the bottom in weakening water quality regulations.
Budget Riders Seek to Rollback Environmental Safeguards
HR 2584, the House Interior & Environment Appropriations Bill for FY12 is filled with anti-environmental riders taking aim at EPA (39 and counting). Some of the sections, riders and amendments that have been introduced and that are currently being debated on the floor would:
- Section 428 would prohibit the EPA from creating or implementing regulations that would require emissions permits be issued for various pollutants associated with livestock production.
- Section 432 of the Bill (stream buffer) would keep the Office of Surface Mining within the Department of Interior from continuing work to revise regulations that today permit destructive and polluting practices associated with surface coal mining.
- Section 433 of the Bill (Enhanced Coordination Restrictions) seeks to shield mountaintop removal coal mining operations from EPA review by stopping EPA and the Corps of Engineers from continuing a process they put in place to scrutinize proposed mines.
- Section 434 of the Bill (Coal Combustion Ash) seeks to end the public rulemaking process on toxic coal ash disposal standards.
- Section 435 of the Bill (“waters of the U.S.”) permanently prohibits EPA from changing its rules or policies to clarify what waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, endangering countless streams and wetlands. EPA and the Corps recently took critical first steps to better protect important waters, so this rider seeks to kill this good government initiative.
- Section 436 of the Bill of the Bill (cooling water intake) would restrict EPA from working further on requirements that govern cooling water intake structures and thermal discharges from power plants.
- Section 438 of the Bill (industrial stormwater) would change the Clean Water Act to exempt stormwater discharges from a host of logging-related sources, including sediment-laden discharges, from the law’s industrial permitting program.
- Section 439 of the Bill (Stormwater) attempts to delay EPA’s work on the development of a proposed rule to reform the national regulations governing runoff pollution from urban and suburban sites and stormwater systems, a major source of water quality problems nationwide.
- Section 461 of the Bill (Ammonia Regulation) would prevent the EPA from setting an ammonia standard under the Clean Air Act. Communities nearby factory farms and combined animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) are disproportionally at risk.
- Section 462 of the Bill (Regulatory Economic Analysis) would delay implementation of the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics standard for power plants and Cross-State Air Pollution rule and requires unnecessary regulatory economic analysis of these rules and others
And, this is just a taste of what is going on with this Bill.
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