(task) Obama Announces New Rule Limiting Water Pollution - NYTimes.com

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> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/us/obama-epa-clean-water-pollution.html?_r=0 <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/us/obama-epa-clean-water-pollution.html?_r=0>
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> Obama Announces New Rule Limiting Water Pollution
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> Photo
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> Gina McCarthy, the E.P.A. administrator, in Chicago last month. A new clean water rule written by the E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers has been finalized. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times
> WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had finalized a major clean water regulation that would restore the federal government’s authority to limit pollution in the nation’s rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands.
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> Environmentalists praised the new rule, which had been widely expected <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/politics/obama-set-to-strengthen-federal-role-in-clean-water-regulation.html>, calling it an important step that would lead to significantly cleaner natural bodies of water and healthier drinking water.
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> “With today’s rule, we take another step towards protecting the waters that belong to all of us,” President Obama said in a written statement.
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> The rule has attracted fierce opposition from several business interests <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/us/politics/environmental-protection-agency-water-rules.html>, including farmers, property developers, fertilizer and pesticide makers, oil and gas producers and a national association of golf course owners. Opponents contend that the rule would stifle economic growth and intrude on property owners’ rights.
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> Anticipating the new rule, Republicans in Congress have said it is another example of what they call executive overreach by the Obama administration. Even before it was announced, they were advancing legislation on Capitol Hill meant to block or delay it.
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> Top officials from the Environmental Protection Agency <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environmental_protection_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org> and Army Corps of Engineers <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/army_corps_of_engineers/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, which co-authored the rule, are expected to announce the details of the rule later Wednesday.
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> “For the water in the rivers and lakes in our communities that flow to our drinking water to be clean, the streams and wetlands that feed them need to be clean too,” the E.P.A. administrator, Gina McCarthy, said in a written statement.
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> “Today’s rule marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the Clean Water Act,” said Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary for the Army Corps of Engineers. “This rule responds to the public’s demand for greater clarity, consistency, and predictability when making jurisdictional determinations. The result will be better public service nationwide,” she added.
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> The water rule is part of a broader push by Mr. Obama to use his executive authority to build a major environmental legacy, without requiring new legislation from the Republican-controlled Congress.
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> This summer, for example, the E.P.A. is expected to release a final set of rules intended to combat climate change <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>, by limiting greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. Mr. Obama is also expected to announce in the coming year that he will put vast areas of public land off limits to energy exploration and other development.
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> But even as E.P.A. staff members worked this month to finish the water rule, the House passed a bill to block it. The Senate is moving forward with a bill that would require the agency to fundamentally revamp the rule.
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> “The administration’s cavalier attitude toward expanding the federal government’s authority into our backyards is absolutely outrageous,” said Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana and a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
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> He went on: “Not only were small businesses — who will be dramatically impacted by expanding of the definition of ‘waters of the United States’ — inappropriately excluded from the rule-making process, but the federal government shouldn’t be regulating puddles on private property in the first place. I will continue to work with my colleagues to reverse and withdraw this rule before the economic devastation begins.”
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> The E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers jointly proposed the rule, known as Waters of the United States <http://www2.epa.gov/cleanwaterrule/clean-water-rule-documents-related-clean-water-rule>, last spring. The agency has held more than 400 meetings about it with outside groups and read more than one million public comments as it wrote the final language.
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> The rule is being issued under the 1972 Clean Water Act, which gave the federal government broad authority to limit pollution in major water bodies, like Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River and Puget Sound, as well as streams and wetlands that drain into larger waters.
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> But two Supreme Court decisions related to clean water protection, in 2001 and in 2006, created legal confusion about whether the federal government had the authority to regulate the smaller streams and headwaters, and about other water sources such as wetlands.
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> E.P.A. officials say the new rule will clarify that authority, allowing the government to once again limit pollution in those smaller bodies of water — although it does not restore the full scope of regulatory authority granted by the 1972 law.
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> The E.P.A. also contends that the new rule will not give it the authority to regulate additional waters that had not been covered under the 1972 law. People familiar with the rule say it will apply to about 60 percent of the nation’s waters.
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> “Our rivers, lakes, and drinking water can only be clean if the streams that flow into them are protected,” said Margie Alt, executive director with Environment America. “That’s why today’s action is the biggest victory for clean water in a decade.”
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> A coalition of industry groups, led by the American Farm Bureau Federation <http://www.fb.org/>, has waged an aggressive campaign against the rule, calling on the E.P.A. to withdraw or revamp it.
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> Farmers fear that the rule could impose major new costs and burdens, by requiring them to pay fees for environmental assessments and to obtain permits just to till the soil near gullies, ditches or dry streambeds where water flows only when it rains. A permit is required for any activity, like filling in a wetland or blocking a stream, that creates a discharge into a body of water covered under the Clean Water Act or affects the health of it.
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> “It’s going to cause a nightmare for farmers,” said Don Parrish, the senior director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Federation.
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> “Our members own the majority of the landscape that’s going to be impacted by this,” he said. “It’s going to make their land, the most valuable thing they possess, less valuable. It could reduce the value of some farmland by as much as 40 percent. If you want to build a home, if you want to grow food, if you want a job to go with that clean water, you have to ask E.P.A. for it.”
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> The lobbying fight over the rule has also generated a public- relations battle on social media.
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> To protest the rule, the American Farm Bureau Federation started a social media campaign, using the Twitter hashtag #DitchTheRule, to urge farmers and others to push the E.P.A. to abandon or revamp the rule. The E.P.A., in response, created a campaign with the hashtag #DitchTheMyth, urging people to speak out in favor of the rule.
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> Some legal experts contend that the agency’s campaign might have tested the limits of federal laws that prohibit a government agency from engaging in grass-roots lobbying for proposed policies or legislation.
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