This week and next, CPR is using this space to highlight several key regulatory safeguards meant to ensure that the nation’s rivers, lakes, and streams are protected from damaging pollution—rules that are currently under development by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and included in our recent Issue Alert, Barack Obama’s Path to Progress in 2015-16: Thirteen Essential Regulatory Actions. Today’s post will highlight the pressing need to rein in stormwater pollution, while also examining some of the challenges the EPA must overcome as it drafts the rules by focusing on Maryland’s experience regulating the pollution source.

As rainwater flows over streets, parking lots, and rooftops and other impervious surfaces, it picks up a potent cocktail of pollutants that includes oil and grease from parking lots, pesticides and herbicides from lawns, and everything in between. This polluted stormwater makes its way through gutters …

Over the next two weeks, CPR will publish a series of blog posts highlighting several key regulatory safeguards for protecting the integrity and health of U.S. water bodies against damaging pollution—rules that are currently under development by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and included in our recent Issue Alert, Barack Obama’s Path to Progress in 2015-16: Thirteen Essential Regulatory Actions.  Today’s post will examine the clean water safeguard that has attracted perhaps the most vociferous opposition from industrial and agricultural polluters along with their antiregulatory allies in Congress: the EPA’s pending rule to clarify the definition of “Waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act, which seeks to ensure that certain classes of critical water bodies—many of which are smaller and often overlooked—receive the statute’s full protections.

Given all the histrionics and overblown exaggerations from industry, it …

Today the President addressed the Business Roundtable on the subject of regulation.

When speaking about revising current regulations, he spoke about the need to keep child labor laws.

According to CPR Executive Director Matt Shudtz:

The President was right to start his remarks with the clear examples of how strong (or to the business lobby, “costly”) regulations save lives and improve the environment. There are hundreds more where they came from, including our labor laws. That’s what makes his later statement about child labor laws so jarring. Keep in mind, this is the same president whose administration pulled back a proposal that would have saved kids from green tobacco poisoning and dangerous farm equipment. He needs to do more than keep the laws on the books—he needs to be moving forward with new rules that address the many hazards that are currently unregulated.

This Giving Tuesday, I hope you'll consider donating to the Center for Progressive Reform. We've had a banner year and are looking forward to many great things in 2015.

Above all, CPR's staff and Member Scholars promote a positive and progressive vision for environmental policy and workers' rights. We need your support to continue that work.

Two days after the midterm elections, we released "Barack Obama's Path to Progress," an Issue Alert laying out an affirmative and politically realistic vision for real progress over the next two years. The Alert identifies 13 essential regulatory actions that the President can and should finish before he leaves office, steps that allow him to save thousands of lives, lock in significant environmental gains, and leave a solid legacy on the regulatory front. Importantly, finalizing these rules is entirely within the province of the Executive Branch, so …

Today is the deadline for comments from the public on EPA's proposed rule to limit carbon emission from existing power plants.

CPR Member Scholar and University of North Carolina School of Law professor Victor Flatt submitted a comment on the rule.

According to his comments:

What I would like to focus on is suggesting that the agency definitively interpret Section 111(d) to allow states to utilize a greenhouse gas market reduction strategy that allows greenhouse gas reductions to come from any source.

Section 111(d) specifies that the Best System of Emissions Reduction adopted by a state be modeled on the CAA’s section 110, which governs the State Implementation Plans (SIPS).  While the EPA has not had cause to consider the direct meaning of this before, I believe that it means that 111(d) provides a hybrid sort of emissions reduction based on proposed …

Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted cert. in several cases to hear the following question:

“Whether the Environmental Protection Agency unreasonably refused to consider costs in determining whether it is appropriate to regulate hazardous air pollutants emitted by electric utilities.”

The fundamental issue is whether it was unreasonable for EPA to interpret section 112 to preclude consideration of cost at this particular stage of the regulatory process — not only different from what the Court thinks is the best interpretation, but a position that no reasonable person could take. The Supreme Court and lower courts have rarely found agency interpretations unreasonable in cases where the statute was ambiguous. This is called the Chevron Step 2 analysis, while deciding whether the statute is ambiguous is called Chevron Step 1. The rationales for the Chevron doctrine are that Congress meant agencies to work out statutory ambiguities and that it is better …

How much is it worth to save the life of a grandfather with lung disease or to keep an asthmatic child out of the hospital?  The ozone rule, which EPA proposes today after years of politically motivated delay and while staring down the barrel of a court order, responds to the urgent calls of a gold-standard panel of scientists, who have been pleading with the agency to lower the existing standard of 75 parts per billion to the lower end of a range between 60-70 ppb.  The Obama Administration did not quite do that, instead suggesting a range of 65-70 ppb, disappointing public health experts, and leaving thousands of lives in danger. But at least it got off the dime regarding one of the most important public health problems caused by air pollution. Hopefully, it will push the numbers down after the comment period.

Because China has …

As I noted in an earlier post, families and friends all across the United States will gather to observe the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow.   Compared to many other countries, we are lucky that during such occasions we are able to focus on the celebrations enjoyed in the company of our loved ones—and not have to worry so much about whether the meal might cause a foodborne illness.  This is because, while far from perfect, the United States has one of the best food safety systems in the world.

With the food supply chain becoming increasingly globalized, however, a strong system for ensuring the safety of domestically produced foods is no longer enough.  Already, 15 percent of the food consumed in the United States is imported.  Imports make up 91 percent of our seafood, 60 percent of our fruits and vegetables, and 61 percent of our honey.   Unfortunately …

Today, the Supreme Court agreed to review a challenge to an EPA rule to reduce mercury pollution. 

The Utility Air Regulatory Group and the National Mining Association, and twenty-one states, appealed an April 2-1 federal appeals court ruling that upheld EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

According to Center for Progressive Reform President and University of Maryland School of Law professor Rena Steinzor:

The Supreme Court’s decision to grant review is lamentable. It’s no surprise that the coal-fired power plants want to overturn EPA’s carefully crafted controls on mercury and other toxic pollutants.  But this rule was mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments because mercury, in very small quantities, damages brain and nervous system development in children and babies in utero.  The rule would control, for the first time, not just mercury but acid gases and heavy metals such as chromium …