Posted October 16, 2013
Farm and commodity groups have announced they will
appeal a recent district court judge’s decision to uphold federal pollution
limits in the Chesapeake Bay area, the nation’s largest estuary, according to
Marc Levy of the Associated Press in an article available here.
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and the
National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) have each filed a notice to appeal the
September decision to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
U.S. District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo ruled that the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can enforce Total Maximum Daily Load
(TMDL) nutrient standards in six states and Washington D.C., which have waters
flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. Judge
Rambo stated that the plaintiffs failed to meet the “heavy burden of showing
that the issuance of the Bay TMDL was arbitrary and capricious and the EPA’s
use of modeling data bore no rational relationship to the realities they
purport to represent.” Judge Rambo also stated that the agreement between
the EPA and the states did not violate the Clean Water Act because the states
agreed and were given flexibility to decide how to meet the limits. For more information on the District Court
decision, a recent post from this blog is available here.
State and federal efforts to improve water quality in
the Chesapeake Bay date back to 1983 when the governors of Maryland, Virginia,
and Pennsylvania, the mayor of Washington D.C. and the head of the EPA signed
the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement. In
2007, the EPA, six states, and Washington D.C. agreed to establish a pollution
reduction program by 2011 and to reach the targeted limits by 2025.
Confident that Judge Rambo’s decision will be upheld on
appeal, Chesapeake Bay Foundation President William Baker said, “It is so
disappointing that so much effort has to be spent in the court versus on
cleaning up the bay and its rivers and streams.”
AFBF President Bob Stallman said, “This is a wrongly
decided case that has dangerous implications for farmers and many others in the
Chesapeake Bay area and nationwide,” according to an Agri-Pulse article available here.
NCGA President Martin Barbre said, “We continue to
believe the policies and science behind the Chesapeake Bay TMDL are wrong and
that it goes beyond the scope of Clean Water Act authority. We hope the Third Circuit Court of Appeals
will reconsider these arguments and ultimately provide state and local
jurisdictions more flexibility to work with agriculture in meeting water
quality goals.”
For more information on the Clean Water Act, please
visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website, here.
