Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 7/29/15


The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District has ruled in favor of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay.

Agriculture groups including the National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers Council, the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association and the National Turkey Federation appealed an earlier district court ruling against their lawsuit contending that the EPA’s total daily maximum load (TMDL) restrictions for pollutants entering the Chesapeake Bay were excessively stringent and intruded on state oversight.

The three-judge appeals panel, however, noted in its ruling the importance of limiting water pollution and cleaning up the nation’s largest estuary, which is home to some 17 million people and crucial to commerce — something noted in applicable Supreme Court cases that support the EPA.

“Regulation of the channels of interstate commerce lies at the very core of Congress’s commerce power,” the ruling states. “ … And there can be no serious question that the Chesapeake Bay is a channel of interstate commerce.”

The federal agency takes it upon itself to establish TMDLs for states if it disapproves a state’s own submission of them. For the Chesapeake Bay, the relevant states — Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and the District of Columbia — and the EPA had agreed that the EPA would draft the TMDL, the ruling notes.

In its conclusion, the judges wrote: “Water pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is a complex problem currently affecting at least 17 [million] people (with more to come). Any solution to it will result in winners and losers. To judge from the arguments and the amici briefs filed in this case, the winners are environmental groups, the states that border the Bay, tourists, fishermen, municipal waste water treatment works, and urban centers. The losers are rural counties with farming operations, nonpoint source polluters, the agricultural industry, and those states that would prefer a lighter touch from the EPA.”

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