Washington Insider - Tuesday

EPA IG Weighs in on Gulf Pollution

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

Fighting Algae Blooms a Bipartisan Effort in Ohio

Legislation introduced last week in both chambers of Congress by the Ohio congressional delegation would require the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to tackle harmful algae blooms contaminating water supplies in the Great Lakes, its tributaries and beyond.

Earlier, another group of Ohio delegates introduced bill which would direct EPA to publish a health advisory within 90 days of the enactment of the legislation, and to submit reports on what level of algae-caused toxins in drinking water is expected to be safe. It would go beyond the Great Lakes by requiring EPA not only to determine what level of the toxins in drinking water is safe for human consumption, but also to recommend feasible treatment techniques and standardized testing procedures.

Neither of the bills is likely to be the subject of a hearing nor to receive a vote before the 113th Congress adjourns following an expected lame duck session in November and possibly December. After the next Congress convenes in January, the issue likely will be reintroduced. At that time, anti-EPA forces in Congress will have an opportunity to raise questions about whether safe drinking water proposals give too much regulatory authority to EPA.

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Continuing Drought in U.S. West Underscores Need for Additional Water Storage

Congress is considering legislation that would expedite the permitting and planning process at the Bureau of Reclamation thus allowing construction of new water storage facilities that are needed in the drought-stricken West. Congress also has been considering whether to provide additional funding for water storage projects, but as witnesses pointed out at a hearing last week, additional money would be of little use unless studies of proposed projects are completed "in a more expeditious, cost-effective and informed manner."

Not everyone is convinced that the proposed legislation is the best way to deal with drought. For example, two of the committee's Democrats — Rep. Grace Napolitano, who is the subcommittee's ranking member, and Rep. Jared Huffman, both of California, questioned the need for the bill at the hearing. Napolitano pointed to a Government Accountability Office report released Sept. 10 that said irrigation districts owe the Bureau of Reclamation $1.6 billion in outstanding water construction costs.

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According to the Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, "irrigators haven't paid for projects that were built 40 years ago, and Congress isn't allocating money for projects already approved." The Bureau of Reclamation has a $3.2 billion backlog of deferred maintenance of existing dams, reservoirs and other water systems, the committee's Democratic members said. "None of these projects are really being held back because of environmental concerns; it is because of money," Huffman told reporters after the hearing.

Once again, both sides agree that there is an issue in need of congressional action, with Republicans claiming the problem can be resolved by cutting regulations and government red tape, and Democrats saying it can be addressed through increased spending.


Washington Insider: EPA IG Weighs in On Gulf Pollution

There is a lot of attention from the farm press about Congressional efforts to pull back EPA's proposed rule to define streams and watersheds subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act. At the same time, there has been less attention paid to significant legal and political efforts to address water quality needs, especially in the 31 states in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin. Now, an EPA official is recommending creation of a more effective system to monitor and track progress in reducing nitrogen and phosphorus discharges into the Gulf dead zone.

The EPA Inspector General recently reported that the five-year average size of the low-oxygen, zone in the Gulf of Mexico is largely unchanged since 1994 at about 5,792 square miles. And, it says there has been no sustained headway toward the reduction targets set in 2001 by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force.

"Dead zones" are caused by low oxygen levels due to the rapid growth of algae caused by excessive discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus, experts say. The nutrient discharges arise mostly from agricultural sources but also from industrial and municipal sources. The U.S. Geological Survey attributes 70 percent of the nutrients that enter the Gulf of Mexico to agricultural activities.

The IG is calling for an "ambitious environmental goal" of reducing the hypoxic zone backed up by a well-designed and -implemented plan that includes a uniform and comprehensive measurement and accountability systems for setting goals and tracking progress at the state and watershed level.

The IG acknowledged that the challenge of achieving nutrient reductions in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya Basin is complicated by the size of the watershed, the third-largest in the world. It also notes that the agency is hampered by its lack of Clean Water Act authority over nonpoint source pollution arising from agricultural activities and by competing environmental priorities.

In particular, the IG pointed to the renewable fuel mandate in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that has led to increased corn production and fertilizer use that, in turn, increased discharges into nearby waters. The report cited a 2008 National Academy of Sciences report, which predicted that meeting the U.S. goal of 15 billion to 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022 would increase the dissolved inorganic nitrogen load to the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin by between 10% and 34%.

Environmental groups have been quick to agree with the IG. "The Inspector General is right in saying that states need 'a uniform and comprehensive measurement and accountability system for setting goals and tracking progress,' which is really just another way of saying we need numeric nutrient criteria," Ann Alexander, staff attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council, told the press.

Observers note that important legal efforts are already under way. For example, a coalition of environmental groups, including the NRDC, successfully sued the EPA for failing to require states to set numeric nutrient water quality standards in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin and the Gulf of Mexico — a decision EPA is now appealing. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled last year that EPA must determine within six months the need for states to set numeric criteria for water bodies.

Alexander said the inspector general's report confirms that voluntary strategies alone are not working, and states lack either the will or the tools to set firm goals and assess their progress. "The only way we're ever going to make a dent in the problem is for EPA to toughen up and start establishing some hard numbers," Alexander said.

So, while ag groups seem to be making headway in pressing the Congress to stop EPA from defining its regulatory authority in geographical and hydrological terms, well-funded environmental groups continue to work through the courts to beef up efforts toward hard and fast rules for ag management practices and fertilizer use.

The EPA IG is pointing to some hard facts that have powerful implications for agriculture and each new water-related disaster such as the recent one in Toledo, Ohio, seems to attract support for tougher run-off rules. A few ag and commodity groups are joining together in Iowa and a few other places to define practices producers say they can live with, but these efforts so far seem to be outpaced by the litigation efforts by environmentalists and other advocates. This is a mismatch producers need to overcome, perhaps by turning to state conservation-oriented programs or those run by USDA, Washington Insider believes.


Want to keep up with events in Washington and elsewhere throughout the day? See DTN Top Stories, our frequently updated summary of news developments of interest to producers. You can find DTN Top Stories in DTN Ag News, which is on the Main Menu on classic DTN products, on the News Menu on Farm Dayta, and on the News and Analysis Menu of DTN's newest Professional and Producer products. DTN Top Stories is also on the home page and news home page of online.dtn.com.

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