Posted January 30, 2014
The American Farm Bureau Federation recently asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to reverse a September 2013 ruling which upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) total maximum daily load for the Chesapeake Bay watershed, according to an AFBF new release available here.
The court will decide whether EPA “exceeded its Clean Water Act authority by mandating how nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment runoff should be allocated among farms, construction and development activities, as well as homeowners and towns throughout the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed.”
In September, U.S. District Court Judge, Sylvia Rambo, ruled that the EPA can enforce Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) nutrient standards on six states and Washington D.C., which have waters flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The text of the opinion is available here.
Judge Rambo granted the EPA’s motion for summary judgment, stating that the plaintiffs failed to meet the “heavy burden of showing that the issuance of the Bay TMDL was arbitrary and capricious, and that EPA’s use of modeling and data bore no rational relationship to the realities they purport to represent.” Judge Rambo said that “the ecological and economic importance of the Chesapeake Bay is well documented” and that the EPA’s actions are consistent with the Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Judge Rambo continued, noting that as “the largest estuary in the United States, the Chesapeake Bay is essential for the well being of many living things.”
A recent post from this blog on the case is available here.
AFBF President Bob Stallman said, “This case involves whether EPA can assume authority over land use and water quality policy decisions that Congress specifically reserved for state and local levels of government.” Stallman continued, “These are uniquely local decisions that should be made by local governments…That is why this power is specifically withheld from the EPA in the Clean Water Act.”
For more information on the Clean Water Act, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
Share: