Flawed EPA Plan Burdens States, Violates Federal Law

The American Farm Bureau recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency challenging the agency's "pollution diet" for this 64,000-square-mile watershed. The response of some critics, including this publication's editorial board, might lead readers to believe that the Farm Bureau is opposing the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite the rhetoric of critics, the Farm Bureau's lawsuit is not about whether to clean up the bay. Farmers remain committed to working to achieve clean water for the Chesapeake. A recent draft study by the Natural Resource Conservation Service found that farmers were actively implementing erosion controls on about 96 percent of producing cropland acres in the watershed. As a result of these practices, the Conservation Service found that farmers were reducing sediment contributions to the region's rivers and streams by 64 percent, nitrogen by 36 percent, and phosphorus by 43 percent. The Farm Bureau and its members will continue to work with the states and other stakeholders to adopt practical solutions for a healthy Chesapeake Bay. Those efforts have nothing to do with this lawsuit.

This lawsuit is about a particular plan — officially, the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load for nutrients and sediment — that violates federal law in three ways: it violates the Clean Water Act by binding states to a federally imposed prescription and timeline; the mandatory "load reductions" calculated by the EPA have no valid scientific basis and therefore violate the Administrative Procedure Act (APA); and the EPA did not allow adequate time for the public to respond to its highly technical proposal (also in violation of the APA).

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