Key developments in the fluid world of water law and policy
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On July 25, Missouri, Arkansas, and Iowa (the states), along with intervenors American Water Works Association and National Rural Water Association (the water associations), petitioned the Eighth Circuit to review the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new rule requiring states to review and report cybersecurity threats to their public water systems (PWS).…
Continue reading EPA Cybersecurity Rule Challenged by States and Water Systems Associations
EPA has proposed to establish “baseline” water quality standards that would apply to all Indian reservation waters where the tribe has not received “treatment as a state” (TAS) authority, the state does not have authority, and the federal government has not already promulgated water quality standards. Under the proposal, tribes will have a limited opportunity to request that certain waters be excluded from the federal baseline standards, but that decision will ultimately be made by the EPA regional administrator. If a tribe receives TAS, promulgates its own water quality standards, and obtains EPA approval of those standards, the federal baseline standards would no longer apply.…
Continue reading Another EPA Proposal to Overhaul the Water Quality Standards Program
On March 13, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the long-anticipated step of proposing maximum contaminant level goals (MCLGs), as well as individual maximum contaminant levels (MCLs), for six PFAS compounds under the Safe Drinking Water Act. PFAS are a large family of synthetic chemicals that have been in use since the 1940s. Many PFAS…
Better late than never, but on January 4, EPA published its Fall 2022 Unified Regulatory Agenda. The Reg Agenda includes a few new rulemaking initiatives and a number of schedule changes that were largely expected since EPA has been running a few months behind on most of their major rulemakings (e.g., WOTUS, 401…
Yesterday, EPA announced a proposed rule that would revise the agency’s regulations to include a requirement that water quality standards protect reserved tribal reserved rights. This proposal is a major milestone for the agency that has tried to incorporate reserved tribal reserved rights into its water quality standards program since at least 2015.
According…
On October 28, the EPA published the Final Fifth Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the EPA is required to publish a new Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) every five years. The CCL contains a list of contaminants that are currently not subject to any national primary drinking water…
Dave Ross and Anna Wildeman provide high-level reactions to the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in the Sackett v. EPA case, the latest legal battle in a long-running dispute over the meaning of the phrase “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act. They discuss the Court’s surprising focus on a little-known parenthetical in the section 404 program, EPA’s potential reactions to the arguments, and whether anyone can reasonably predict the outcome of the case in what may be the most closely watched environmental decision of the current term.…
The Biden administration has enormous climate and carbon management goals, which rightfully include the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide as a core part of its climate adaptation strategy. The administration, to its credit, has worked with Congress to provide tax credits and billions of dollars of new funding for programs targeting the transportation and sequestration…
On September 12, with exactly three weeks until the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument in the Sackett v. EPA case, EPA sent the latest iteration of a final rule to define “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) to the Office of Management and Budget for interagency review. While the Court may not issue an opinion…
EPA released a pre-publication version of its proposal to re-write the Clean Water Act 401 Certification Rule. The proposed re-write comes after the Northern District of California vacated EPA’s 2020 Certification Rule, which the U.S. Supreme Court later reinstated. The proposal also includes conforming amendments to EPA’s certification regulations for the Section 402 NPDES…
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