The Clean Power Plan: Achieving Clean Air Act Goals with Flexibility and Cleaner Energy
When Congress extensively amended the Clean Air Act in 1970 to form the air pollution laws that we know today, it spoke in no uncertain terms about the breadth of federal authority in this area while also centrally involving states in the effort to clean up the nation's air. Congress directed the EPA Administrator to list the pollutants "which in his judgment" have "an adverse effect on public health and welfare" and are generated from "numerous or diverse" sources – pollutants known as "criteria" pollutants that threaten public health and the environment.1
To protect our health and the nation's valuable crops, buildings, and ecosystems, the EPA is required to establish maximum acceptable concentrations of these criteria air pollutants, and states have to write plans to keep them below those concentrations.2 If the plans do not meet the requirements of the law, Congress provided that the federal government should write its own plan.3 Further, out of concern that state plans would not do enough to keep pollution below acceptable levels, Congress in the 1970 Amendments also directed the EPA to write national emissions standards ("new source performance standards") that limited the amount of pollutants that newly constructed …
For decades, politicians, advocates, and the press have lamented America's aging, deteriorating, or even failing infrastructure and called for change – usually to little avail. Perhaps another strategy should be to celebrate success wherever we see it and spotlight achievements to demonstrate that we can change the situation if we choose key public investments over apathy and short-sighted budget cuts. Just a few weeks ago, residents and advocates in the Chesapeake Bay region heard one such infrastructure success story.
In mid-June, Shawn Garvin, the Mid-Atlantic regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stood beside George Hawkins, CEO of DC Water, and other officials at the Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant to applaud the completion of the plant's upgrade with more than a billion of dollars' worth of advanced pollution control technology, making it the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the world. Garvin also referenced …
The most important lessons can be the hardest to learn. Sometimes they even take a crisis. We can hope that the sorry saga of Flint, Michigan's lead-poisoned water will be such a teachable moment for at least some of the anti-government crowd, finally driving home the point that government has a vital role in protecting health and safety, and that it can only play it if it takes the responsibility seriously and is provided the wherewithal to do its job properly.
President Barack Obama has often been a champion of active government of the sort that was missing in action in Flint. History will surely regard him that way, with health care reform, climate change regulation, the auto industry bailout, the 2009 stimulus bill, and Dodd-Frank on the list of examples. But as is so often the case, a closer look tells a more conflicted tale …
In a merits opinion issued on June 21, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming (Judge Skavdahl) held that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management--the agency tasked with protecting and preserving federal lands for multiple uses by the public--lacks the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") on federally-owned and managed lands. Using a Chevron step 1 analysis (one standard used to review agencies' interpretation of the meaning of statutes that grant agencies authority), the court finds that "Congress has directly spoken to the issue and precluded federal agency authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing," with the exception of fracturing that uses diesel fuels. The court bases this erroneous conclusion on the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)--an Act that governs Environmental Protection Agency and state authority over underground water sources. Under the SDWA, entities that inject substances underground must first obtain a permit …
This morning, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its annual assessments of progress made by the seven jurisdictions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The bottom line: nothing has really changed in terms of the content or tone from the previous annual assessments, and they do not appear to reflect a shift in strategy by EPA toward greater enforcement against lagging states under the "accountability framework" of the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (Bay TMDL).
First, a quick summary of some of the highlights. EPA downgraded Delaware's agriculture sector from "ongoing oversight" (no significant concerns) to "enhanced oversight" (some concerns) because the state has been slow to issue permits and extend coverage under permits for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) – or industrial-scale poultry operations – and because Delaware failed to substantiate the nutrient management plan compliance levels that it has reported to the Chesapeake Bay …
Late last month, almost 250 water quality advocates and officials convened in Annapolis for what is likely one of the largest gatherings of Chesapeake Bay experts. The 2016 Choose Clean Water Coalition conference brought together experts from each of the seven Bay jurisdictions and the federal government to share their experiences and ideas and to hear from some of the officials in charge of the Bay restoration process. They included Maryland's Secretary of the Environment, the Director of the Chesapeake Bay Program, and Gina McCarthy, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The event provided a great opportunity for all of us who care about the Bay and its watershed to get re-energized and educated about the latest projects, policies, and successes. But it was also a time for taking stock. Various papers, studies, and data releases in the last few months confirmed the narrative …
The Colorado Supreme Court's decisions last month holding that local governments in Colorado could not ban or place long-term moratoria on hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") added to the growing list of states that have preempted local control over this oil and gas production method. This is a troublesome trend and one that calls for closer scrutiny as more states follow this path.
Local governments are "merely" arms of the state, and, therefore, states do have the power to take back the broad land use authority they have historically delegated to local decision makers if they so choose. This is true even in states that have granted broad home rule authority to local governments through their constitutions, although the ability of a legislature or court to take back constitutionally granted home rule is somewhat more limited.
In Colorado, for example, the state constitution makes clear that local law …
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan – the agency's bold attempt to use the Clean Air Act to protect our health and the environment by regulating greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants – has been challenged in court by some 28 states, 205 members of Congress, electric utilities, coal companies and other industries, some labor unions, and a few conservative, nonprofit law firms. In response, EPA's rule has been defended by the agency itself, 18 states, more than 200 current and former members of Congress, dozens of cities and counties, numerous environmental and public health organizations, certain industries and labor unions, climate scientists, electric grid experts, two former EPA administrators, and others.
The ongoing litigation – now scheduled for a full-court (or en banc) oral argument before the D.C. Circuit in September – seems likely to be ultimately resolved by the U …
Are you interested in ensuring that communities impacted by climate change can effectively adapt to changing conditions and that vulnerable populations will be protected and treated fairly in the process? Do you have a background in the legal and policy issues related to both clean water and climate change adaptation? If so, you should consider applying for the new climate change adaptation policy analyst position at the Center for Progressive Reform!
The focus of this position is climate change adaptation, with special emphasis on environmental justice and the implications of climate change for the Chesapeake Bay. The analyst will join a small team of professional staff and a network of top-notch Member Scholars who are examining these issues and are looking to turn policy into action. Among other things, the analyst will:
- Research and promote best practices for adapting to climate change, with special emphasis on protecting …
This post has also been published on The Huffington Post.
Within the next few days, Congress is likely to enact the first update of a major environmental statute in many years. Widely hailed as a bipartisan compromise, legislation to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA, pronounced like the opera Tosca) was made possible by the steely and relentless determination of the U.S. chemical industry. The deal places burdens on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that will undermine public health and environmental protections for many years to come.
A well-funded, politically empowered EPA that employed the best and the brightest of American scientists might be able to make lemonade out of the lemons scattered throughout this unfortunate legislation. But it's far more likely that the agency we have today will soon become mired in "paralysis-by-analysis" before it takes action and a flood of litigation after …
