Groups jockeying to shape EPA water rule

More than 100 advocates representing dozens of industry groups, companies and environmental organizations are flocking to the White House in a last-ditch effort to influence controversial regulations that would redefine the reach of the federal government’s water pollution enforcement. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has in recent days disclosed 16 meetings about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal since early April, when the OMB started its final regulatory review of the plan. The people lobbying on the rule represented residential developers, utilities, manufacturers, miners, farmers, and environmental and conservation groups, among others. The meetings are a chance for lobbyists to influence development of the EPA’s contentious “waters of the United States” rule, which the Obama administration plans to make final soon. Congressional Republicans want the proposal scrapped. They deride the rule as a massive federal overreach that would put the government in charge of puddles, dry creek beds, ditches, man-made ponds, occasionally wet land and other areas that do not need federal water quality standards. Though many business groups echo that criticism, their participation in the White House meetings signals an effort to help shape the rule’s final language if they can’t stop it altogether. “What we were hoping to get out of the meetings is a clear understanding on the part of the White House staff, the EPA and the Corps of Engineers what the practical implications of this expansion would be,” said Jerry Howard, chief executive officer of the National Association of Home Builders. His group brought construction companies from areas including the Southwest and central Florida to say that expanding federal authority could require federal permits for routine construction activities. “We brought in people with real-world experience to show what the real-world problems would be,” he said. “It’s a very convoluted process to get a building permit in every jurisdiction in America.” Farmers and ranchers, meanwhile, are seeking to protect exemptions for agriculture that ensure ditches, ponds and other common agricultural activities are not newly regulated. On the other side, environmentalists are arguing in favor of the most stringent possible protections for streams, ponds and wetlands to ensure downstream water protection. Navis Bermudez, deputy legislative director at the Southern Environmental Law Center, participated in a meeting with other environmental groups to make sure that certain isolated ponds are covered by the rule, which was not clear in the draft proposal. “We just reiterated to the folks we met with there to make the case that the EPA could go further than they had in their draft rule and there was enough scientific evidence to include these types of waters in waters covered,” she said...more