Challenge To Chesapeake Cleanup Tests EPA Power

Maryland is joining three other jurisdictions in supporting the Obama administration's plan to clean up the Chesapeake Bay watershed, seeking to counter an election-year legal challenge by farmers and 21 attorneys general that could shape future U.S. environmental policy.

The case before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia asks whether the Environmental Protection Agency went too far in negotiating a 2010 agreement that sets pollution limits in the nation's largest estuary.

The last of the legal briefs in the case were submitted late Monday. Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler argues that the cleanup is making progress and shouldn't be derailed by outside states with no interest in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. Signing onto his brief are Delaware and the District of Columbia; Virginia earlier had submitted a separate brief in support. That means four of the seven bay jurisdictions who consented to the EPA cleanup in 2010 are now defending the plan in court.
MORE