This Week in Washington is a weekly publication of the Water Environment Federation’s Government Affairs department. It provides updates on the latest legislative and regulatory developments that affect the water and wastewater communities.

November 14, 2008

In this Issue:
• Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Interior, Forest Service and EPA to Undergo Leadership Shifts
• Great Lakes Advocates Call for Ecological Separation of Great Lakes from Mississippi: River Basin
• Comment Period for EPA’s Perchlorate Decision Extended
• Climate Report Released with 180 Actions for the New President/Congress
• EPA Proposes Minor Correction to Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule; Changes to References to Analytical Methods

Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Interior, Forest Service and EPA to Undergo Leadership Shifts
The Senate subcommittee that oversees funding for the Interior Department, Forest Service and U.S. EPA will see a major turnover in Republican leadership next year.  Nearly half of the Republicans on the Interior and Environment Subcommittee will not return to Congress in January. The subcommittee shakeup is just part of a series of leadership shifts on the influential Appropriations Committee, spurred by the departure of at least three Republicans and the decision by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) to step down as committee chairman.  Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) will take over as chairman when the new Congress begins in January. All 15 of the Democrats that serve on the panel are slated to return to the Senate next year. But the committee will lose three GOP members to retirement: Sens. Wayne Allard of Colorado, Larry Craig of Idaho and Pete Domenici of New Mexico. The panel could lose a fourth Republican, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

The departure of the long-serving Republicans will cause a number of shifts on the Appropriations Committee -- potentially opening the ranking member spots on three subcommittees overseeing the Interior and Energy departments and agriculture.  The GOP shift will have the biggest effect on the Interior and Environment panel, where all four GOP members serve. The changes could place Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, currently the lowest-ranking Republican on that panel, as ranking member. Allard was the previous ranking member of the subcommittee.

Great Lakes Advocates Call for Ecological Separation of Great Lakes from Mississippi: River Basin
Leading Great Lakes advocates on November 12 called for federal leadership and funding for “ecological separation” of the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River basin to protect both great watersheds from the perils of invasive species.  The announcement comes with the Alliance for the Great Lakes release of a new report, "Preliminary Feasibility of Ecological Separation of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes," which outlines six options for separating the watersheds and halting the transfer of species between them.  “The Great Lakes and the Mississippi River are at risk because of a connection that’s nothing natural,” said Alliance Vice President for Policy Joel Brammeier, lead author of the report. “Fifteen miles of water and an experimental electric barrier are all that’s standing between the Great Lakes and Asian carp. We’ve got to get serious about a real solution.”  Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley noted that Asian carp in the Mississippi River were a known threat to the Great Lakes back in 2003, when the city hosted a pre-emptive strike: the Chicago Aquatic Invasive Species Summit. "We have been asking for years to complete these electrical barriers," Daley said. "It's time for our federal, state and local partners to follow through on keeping these two great natural resources safe."

A 2003 analysis suggested that separation of the systems could reasonably be achieved within 10 years. With five years now passed and many millions spent, progress on even interim steps such as a permanent electrical barrier has been difficult.  The report identifies several sites upstream from the electrical barrier as likely contenders for ecological separation. Although some changes to navigation would be unavoidable, these locations would allow continued use of the system for wastewater disposal and minimize the impacts on the flow of goods and recreational boaters. The study suggests these traffic flows could even be enhanced if ecological separation was addressed as part of a revitalization of the Chicago-area navigational infrastructure.  To view the report, visit: http://www.greatlakes.org/Page.aspx?pid=818.

Comment Period for EPA’s Perchlorate Decision Extended
The comment period for the EPA’s preliminary determination not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act has been extended until November 28. The original deadline of November 10 was pushed back in response to several requests, including from the agency’s own Science Advisory Board (SAB) and from some of the hundreds of comments received to date. The EPA announced their decision back in October, after a request from the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee to set a maximum contaminant level, that a rule was not necessary for perchlorate because it was not at levels of public health concern, therefore it would not provide a meaningful opportunity to reduce health risks. The SAB strongly believes that there must be compelling scientific support not to regulate perchlorate and the EPA preliminary determination relied heavily on a computer model. Only two states, Massachusetts and California, have set limits on the allowable amount of perchlorate in drinking water, both at levels far below what the EPA deemed permissible. For information regarding the EPA’s Drinking Water Regulatory Determinations and the specific perchlorate decision, visit www.epa.gov/safewater/ccl/reg_determine2.html. Comments should be submitted to www.regulations.gov and identified by Docket No. EPA-HQ-OW-2008-0068.

Climate Report Released with 180 Actions for the New President/Congress
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute hosted a briefing on Capital Hill on November 13, held in conjunction with release of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) report. The PCAP was created to provide a broad menu of policy and program recommendations for the incoming President and Congress to address climate change issues. The report emphasizes the urgency of climate change, stressing that these actions should be taken in the first 100 days, several of which could be done through presidential executive authority. Although the briefing focused on emissions and energy issues addressed in the plan, such as setting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard at 50 miles per gallon by 2025 and reducing U.S. emissions by 25-30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, there are several recommendations for the water sector in this plan. The PCAP recommended that a task force be created to identify policy gaps in the Clean Water Act (CWA) regarding climate change, and that the EPA should be directed to reinvigorate enforcement of the CWA. They also recommend creating a ‘Clean Water Restoration Act’ to protect water bodies excluded by the narrow interpretation of the CWA. The advisory board is made up of organizations with varied backgrounds, including but not limited to: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Alliance to Save Energy, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Natural Capitalism Solutions, Inc., The Arlington Institute, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, National Wildlife Federation, University of Colorado, and several other universities. WEF sponsored and participated in the National Leadership Summits for a Sustainable America, which contributed ideas for the PCAP. To view the report, visit www.climateactionproject.com/plan/.

EPA Proposes Minor Correction to Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule; Changes to References to Analytical Methods
EPA announced in the November 14 Federal Register that it is proposing to make a minor correction to the Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule (DBPR) and make minor, unrelated, changes in references to expedited, alternative methods and other analytical methods in the regulations. EPA promulgated the Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfectant Byproducts Rule on January 4, 2006. A requirement for ground water systems serving 500-9,999 people was unintentionally excluded from the final rule. As a result, the rule allowed for less routine compliance monitoring than intended for this category of Public Water Systems (PWSs). These PWSs should have been required to monitor for both total trihalomethanes (TTHM) and haloacetic acids (HAA5) concentrations at two locations. Due to the error, they were only required to monitor for either TTHM or HAA5 at two locations. EPA is also proposing to make minor, unrelated changes in the CFR by adding references to the list of methods approved under the Expedited Approval Process, removing references to outdated methods, and specifying a new source for the publication titled Technical Notes on Drinking Water Methods.  Comments must be received on or before January 13, 2009. To view the November 14 Federal Register notice, visit: http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WATER/2008/November/Day-14/w26959.htm.  To view the January 4, 2006 final rule, visit: http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-WATER/2006/January/Day-04/w03.htm.

Quote of the Week
There ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You've got to say, 'I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.'
- Lee Iacocca (1924 - )

This Week in Washington is provided by the Water Environment Federation, Alexandria, VA and is available on-line at www.wef.org/GovernmentAffairs/TWIW.  To receive by e-mail, contact Sam Hadeed at shadeed@wef.org.