Chesapeake Bay Action Plan

(Posted by Gerald Winegrad)

In his continuing efforts to undermine Chesapeake Bay restoration, Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) has introduced HR 4153 along with Rep. Tim Holden (D-Penn.). The legislation is another attempt to prevent the EPA from implementing the long-awaited, court-ordered Chesapeake Bay restoration plan known as the Chesapeake TMDL (total maximum daily load). The pollution diet under the TMDL was necessitated by the Bay states’ repeated failures over decades to meet agreed upon reductions for nutrient and sediment pollutants so as to clean-up the 90% of the Bay that is so polluted that the Clean Water Act is violated.

As Doug Siglin, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Congressional affairs guru said in a statement,

“Congressman Goodlatte’s bill would undermine the pollution limits currently in place, derail clean-up efforts, and undercut the federal government’s role in making sure that all Americans have access to clean, swimmable, fishable waters. The federal government has a key role to play in the restoration of local rivers, streams, and the Chesapeake Bay, and we urge all members of Congress to steer well clear of this damaging legislation.”

Reps. Goodlatte and Holden appear to be handmaidens of the farm lobby as the legislation raises some of the very issues the American Farm Bureau and national lobbying arms of the grain and poultry industries have used to try and block Bay restoration plans in their federal law suit.

In February 2011, Rep. Goodlatte succeeded in attaching an amendment to the must-pass FY2011 continuing resolution to fund the federal agencies that would have prevented the EPA from implementing the Bay pollution diet under the TMDL. Our Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay interceded and prepared and sent a letter to Congress on behalf of 60 Bay leader signatories opposing this outrageous effort. (See previous post: Goodlatte Amendment Is a Travesty for the Bay.)

These leaders include two former Governors, a former U.S. Senator, a former Congressman, current and former State Senators, a current County Council member, two former secretaries of Natural Resources from Virginia and Maryland, a former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Environment, top senior Bay scientists and conservation leaders. These signatories include Democrats and Republicans.

The amendment was rejected in the Senate and did not become law. (See previous post: Congressman Goodlatte and You.)

Now, we must fight yet another attempt to destroy ongoing efforts to once and for all clean-up the Bay and meet federal Clean Water Act requirements. We need to let Congress know that it is well past the time to face up to the reality of the need for ramped-up efforts to restore this great estuary.

If you disagree with this harmful legislation, tell Rep. Goodlatte how you feel by leaving him a message on his Facebook page, or
sending him a Tweet, to @repgoodlatte.

Let him know how you feel.

Gerald Winegrad is a former Maryland state senator and chairman of Senior Scientists and Policymakers for the Bay.

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(Posted by Dawn Stoltzfus)

As has been rumored for many months—yesterday Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would undercut the Clean Water Act and essentially quash the multi-state Chesapeake Bay “TMDL” pollution diet cleanup process. This would be devastating, as many Bay scientists and advocates are hopeful that the TMDL and each state’s Watershed Implementation Plans could finally provide a solution to making our waters, and the Bay, fishable and swimmable again. We’ll be watching this closely and, as CBF’s Doug Siglin says, strongly urge all members of Congress to “steer well clear” of this bad legislation.

If you disagree with this harmful legislation, tell Rep. Goodlatte how you feel by leaving him a message on his Facebook page, or
sending him a Tweet, to @repgoodlatte.

Let him know how you feel.

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(Posted by Bob Gallagher.)

After decades of dissembling and broken promises, the President’s Executive Order 13508 and the implementing “pollution diet” proposed by the EPA represent the best chance we have had in a generation to actually start cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that corporate polluters have ramped up their opposition to the pollution diet to unprecedented levels to include massive spending on media advertising, lobbying, campaign contributions, litigation and scientific dirty tricks.

During one 60-minute segment of television news programming, I recently saw four oil and gas industry public relations ads, including one extolling the benefits of “fracking,” the process of extracting natural gas by injecting million of gallons of water and toxic chemicals into the ground. A legislative measure offered by Representative Goodlatte (R-Virginia) would have stripped the EPA of funding to implement the pollution diet. The Farm Bureau has sued EPA to prevent implementation of the pollution diet. Corporate polluters have funded bogus studies to undermine the science behind everything from climate change to the consequences of fracking.

Now some congressional beneficiaries of corporate polluters’ first amendment largess would require EPA to do a cost-benefit analysis of the pollution diet. It would not analyze the cost to the public of continued pollution of the bay and its tributaries. Rather, it would seek to determine whether the cost of implementation by EPA of the pollution diet would outweigh the value of the benefits of the regulation.

The idea is breathtaking in its perversity. Would we require the prosecutor of Bernie Madoff to demonstrate that the costs of investigation and prosecution would be less than any fine expected to be recovered? We are talking about enforcing a law that protects a public treasure.

The bay is owned by all of us. The Clean Water Act recognizes that by requiring that pollution of our waters stop unless allowed by a permit. In the decades since its passage, polluters have undermined the CWA by gutting funding for implementation and enforcement. Some point to this as the reason we have been unable to make the needed progress in improving the Bay’s health. Polluters’ attack on the pollution diet is a continuation of those efforts to undermine the requirements of the CWA.

Not even the worst corporate polluters pollute for pollution’s sake. It is all about the money. It is not about the role of government. Corporate polluters are happy to accept corporate welfare. It is not about states’ rights. Polluters frequently choose the regulator that brings the most benefit to their bottom line. It is not about jobs. We will have a stronger economy and more jobs with a clean bay. The only principle behind opposition to the pollution diet is money.

Corporate polluters do not expect indefinitely to avoid rules that will restrict their ability to pollute the bay. All they need to do is delay them. The longer they delay them, the more money they make by avoiding the costs of pollution reduction.

Historically, American corporations have made money and thrived by improving processes and productivity, opening new markets, fostering innovation and adapting new technologies. These profits are not easily achieved. They require hard work and risk of investment capital.

Arbitrage is profiting through the exploitation of an imbalance in the market with little or no risk. In this age of deregulation, corporations increasingly seek profits through creating or maintaining regulatory imbalances in the markets. The opportunities for huge imbalances, like those created by regulatory monopolies, have diminished. But, opportunities to arbitrage regulatory costs can yield huge risk-free profits. Even after spending millions of dollars on public relations advertising, lobbyists and campaign contributions, corporate agriculture—including corporate operators of factory farms—will reap millions in profits from delaying the day when they will have to clean up their animal waste, stop spreading arsenic and other contaminants on the land and stop releasing millions of tons of contaminated sediments into our rivers and streams. Other industries reap similar benefits from delay.

It is much easier to boost the corporate bottom line by environmental arbitrage—by passing major costs of production to taxpayers and the next generation through the delay of environmental regulation—than it is to create value through increased productivity and innovation. Unless we require that the pollution diet be implemented without delay, we will permit corporate polluters, through environmental arbitrage, to continue to steal a public treasure a penny at a time. That is the real cost of delay.

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(Posted by Doug Siglin.)

Doug Siglin, Federal Affairs Director, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

I don’t claim to know Congressman Bob Goodlatte personally, but I was a Capitol Hill staffer for many years, and I met a lot of Congressmen like him. In Congressman Goodlatte’s worldview, the federal government should be small and unobtrusive. It should provide for the national defense and deliver the mail, as the old saw goes, and not do too much more. Regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency represent the worst possible face of the federal government. In this worldview, the EPA is a limiter of freedom, self-reliance, hard work, and the American way of life. Newt Gingrich, who is advocating the complete elimination of the EPA, also shares such a view.

Congressman Goodlatte has said several times that the EPA was “overzealous” and made a “regulatory power grab,” exceeding its authority in developing the Bay-wide TMDL. He feels very strongly that now it is Congress’ role to stop the TMDL and the related state watershed implementation plans dead in their tracks. He lost the first round last week when the Senate refused to accept his amendment, but he appears to believe what he says, and you can bet he’s not going home with his tail between his legs.

I don’t share much of Congressman Goodlatte’s worldview, but surely he’s entitled to his beliefs, and the voters of Virginia’s sixth district have elected him to represent them ten different times. I even grudgingly respect him for fighting hard for what he believes.

Here’s the significance of this discussion about Bob Goodlatte: A substantial majority of the U.S. House of Representatives now hold a worldview like his, and many of them are far more adamant than he is. Moreover, even much of the U.S. Senate now holds similar views. The next attempt to defund the TMDL will come on the 2012 EPA funding bill, most likely within the next six weeks. It may or may not be sponsored by Congressman Goodlatte. However it comes, it will almost certainly pass the House, and it could be far harder this time for the Senate to stop.

So the rest of this is about you. If you’re reading this, you’re interested in the TMDL – and chances are good that you want to see it succeed. So, now that you know that Congressman Goodlatte or someone else who shares his worldview is going to try again soon to blow up the TMDL, are you just going to sit there? “Politics ain’t beanbag,” said the fictional Mr. Dooley, meaning that it’s not an easy game.

I’ll update that for the internet age: politics ain’t armchair or deskchair. The right response to a significant political threat to what you believe in is to get up out of your chair and act, not just to sit there and wish that someone else will make it go away.

So here’s what you can do:

• Call and ask for an appointment with a congressional aide and tell him or her why the TMDL is critical to the region’s future.
• Make a substantial contribution to an advocacy group working on the issue.
• Write a strong letter to a newspaper editor or a website.
• Send an attaboy (or attagirl) to a member of Congress who is willing to stand up for the Bay restoration plan.
• Do something to fend off the attack.

Refusing to act out of indifference, or political cynicism, or the false feeling that you can’t make a difference, simply doesn’t cut it as a response to a dedicated political opponent.

Two centuries ago, the conservative French political philosopher Joseph de Maistre wrote that every nation has the government it deserves. A modest update of that thought might be that every democratic nation’s people get the policies they deserve. Unless you and a lot of other people with a different worldview than Congressman Goodlatte get legislatively active right now, you may have to live with the demise of the Bay restoration that we’ve waited so long for, and worked so hard to get. And you will deserve it.

(Doug Siglin is the federal affairs director in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Capitol Hill office. He has worked in D.C. as a congressional staffer or environmental lobbyist for nearly 30 years.)

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(Posted by Gerald Winegrad.)

In the anti-regulatory fervor prevailing in the House of Representatives, Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) succeeded in gaining the adoption of an amendment that would prevent the EPA from implementing the long-awaited, court-ordered Chesapeake Bay restoration plan known as the Chesapeake TMDL (total maximum daily load). The amendment was attached to the continuing resolution to keep the federal government operating. It was adopted on a vote of 239-185 on February 19, 2011, mostly along party lines and would block funding for overseeing the pollution diet that caps Bay-killing nutrients and sediment. Worse yet, all federal funding for the states to implement their pollution reduction plans through watershed implementation plans also would be blocked.

This rider was one of dozens of anti-environmental riders attached to the must-pass resolution to keep the government open. The pollution diet under the TMDL was necessitated by the Bay states repeated failures to meet agreed upon reductions for nutrient and sediment pollutants so as to clean-up the 90 percent of the Bay that is so polluted that it violates Clean Water Act standards. The Goodlatte amendment could actually block more than $300 million in federal funding to curb agricultural, sewerage, and urban runoff pollutants. The language provides:

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to develop, promulgate, evaluate, implement, provide oversight to, or backstop total maximum daily loads or watershed implementation plans for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.”

This outrageous effort would undermine the current Bay recovery plan and it is even more disconcerting that with the collapse of so many of the Bay’s fisheries and the critical water quality problems, a Bay-state representative in Congress would propose such a killer rider. The Bay states have known for at least four years that the court-mandated TMDL was coming because they have failed to take the necessary actions to reduce pollution to meet Clean Water Act requirements. Such pollution diets have been put into place in thousands of river segments across the U.S. (Read an analysis of the impact this amendment would have if passed, from Chesapeake Bay Foundation Federal Affairs Director Doug Siglin.)

Responding to this ill-advised amendment, 60 Bay leaders have sent Congress a strongly worded letter opposing the amendment. These leaders include two former Governors, a former U.S. Senator, a former Congressman, current and former State Senators, a current County Council member, two former secretaries of Natural Resources from Virginia and Maryland, a former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Environment, top senior Bay scientists and conservation leaders. These signatories include Democrats and Republicans.

The 60 Bay leaders noted that adoption of this crippling amendment would be devastating and prevent meaningful progress on three decades of efforts to restore the Bay. After repeated failures to meet written voluntary commitments to restore the Bay, the EPA issued its pollution diet limits in December 2010 and gave the Bay states until 2025 to meet them. Spurred by the American Farm Bureau and local agri-business interests, Rep. Goodlatte introduced the amendment. These same agri-business interests blocked passage of a Bay restoration bill late last year and, in January, filed suit in federal court to block the pollution diet. Rep. Goodlatte’s amendment is another attempt to let agriculture off the hook for reducing its share of Bay pollutants, when agriculture is the largest source of nutrients and sediment pollution. Of course like all opponents of mandatory efforts to restore the Bay, Rep. Goodlatte maintains he fully supports the Bay restoration, but….. With friends like him, who needs enemies?

For the future of the Bay, all signatories are pressing the Congress to reject the Goodlatte amendment and so far, the Senate has not concurred in these efforts to block clean-up plans and their funding. I spoke with former Governor Hughes about the Goodlate amendment. Governor Hughes was the champion of the Bay who began formal clean-up efforts in 1983. He found it hard to believe that such an amendment was adopted by the House and asked how could this happen? I could only reply these are bad times for the Bay and the environment with a Congress that is as virulently anti-environmental as any in my lifetime. He, too, signed the letter.

SAVE THE BAY? Forget about it. It will never happen with organized agriculture’s current resistance.

Gerald W. Winegrad is an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy where he teaches graduate courses on Chesapeake Bay restoration and wildlife management. He served 16 years in the Maryland legislature where he was responsible for many Bay initiatives, including the state’s phosphate detergent ban. He currently chairs the senior Bay scientists and policy maker group.

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