Farmers to Appeal EPA "Bay Diet" Victory

Speaking of lawsuits, another one that's been simmering for some time now is the suit farmers lost against the EPA to prevent the EPA from determining how the various cut backs in pollution called the "Bay Diet" were to be divvied up.

The American Farm Bureau Federation this week asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to reverse a Sept. 2013 federal court ruling that upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s total maximum daily load (TMDL) for the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The court will decide whether EPA exceeded its Clean Water Act authority by mandating how nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment runoff should be allocated among farms, construction and development activities, as well as homeowners and towns throughout the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake Bay watershed.

“This case involves whether EPA can assume authority over land use and water quality policy decisions that Congress specifically reserved for state and local levels of government,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “Last year the district court ruled that EPA can dictate how and when states and localities must restrict land uses, even to the point of banning development or demanding that specific areas be taken out of agricultural use.

“These are uniquely local decisions that should be made by local governments,” continued Stallman. “That is why this power is specifically withheld from EPA in the Clean Water Act.”

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't expect them to win this one, unless it goes all the way up to SCOTUS.