Politics
Congressman Goodlatte and You
(Posted by Doug Siglin.)
Perhaps you read in the papers that the Goodlatte amendment to withhold funds from implementation of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL (Total Daily Maximum Load) is dead for the moment. But don’t bother to celebrate: It or something similar will be offered again not long after the spring rains.
Read MoreGoodlatte Amendment Is A Travesty for the Bay
(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:
Read MoreThe Bay Is Not Improving
(Posted by Tom Horton.)
In recent weeks there’s been a two-pronged push by agricultural interests to credit farmers with already doing most of what’s needed to reduce pollution; also to discredit federal computer modeling that says farmers need to do a lot more to meet the Chesapeake Bay restoration goals.
The extra credit comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service; the challenge to EPA’s modeling effort comes in a lawsuit filed by the American Farm Bureau.
Read MoreFor Bay Clean Up, Goals Without Consequences Are Seldom Met
(posted by Tim Simpson)
Goals without consequences are almost never met by nations, states or individuals. Weight loss comes to mind. While being overweight has health consequences (not unlike ignoring the health of the Bay), their onset is gradual and long-term so it’s easy to ignore our well intentioned goals. But, what does it matter if we wait one more year? That same logic has been applied to the Bay Program and we are almost to the point of not having leaders who remember what a healthy Bay is.
Read MoreAgribusiness Lobby Resorts to Warfare Against Chesapeake Bay
(Posted by Gerald Winegrad.)
Despite repeated scientific analyses and data documenting agriculture as the Chesapeake Bay’s #1 polluter, the giant agribusiness lobby continues to resist better practices to stem the bay-killing nutrients and sediment flowing from farm land.
Read MoreHouse Ag Committee’s Assault on Science
(Posted by Bill Thompson.)
The assault against science and facts hit a new low when opponents of mandatory efforts to regulate clean water in the Chesapeake Bay used a March 16 House Agriculture subcommittee hearing to further their attempts to undercut the U.S. EPA’s Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) requirements.
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