EPA Commits to Not Saving the Bay, Again

MorningAGClips, EPA Recommits To Next Phase of Chesapeake Bay Cleanup. "EPA’s fiscal 2025 budget calls for Congress to continue funding the Bay Program"

As the partnership to clean up the Chesapeake Bay nears its 2025 deadline, EPA Administrator Michael Regan today renewed the agency’s commitment to leading the many federal agencies working together to restore the Bay into the next chapter of cleanup effort.

Regan spoke in response to a question from Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) at today’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on EPA’s fiscal year 2025 budget request.

Cardin asked if Regan and EPA would commit to reinstating the EPA-led Federal Leadership Committee, which was created in 2009 under a Chesapeake Bay restoration executive order signed by President Obama. The Committee developed and coordinated the work of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, and Transportation under what became the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.

Regan said EPA would “absolutely” reconstitute the committee “for a fall meeting.” Regan added, “We see it as a huge opportunity to get all the executives around the table and be sure that we’re pursuing those goals that you and others would like us to pursue.”

Since 2010, the federal government, the six Bay states, and the District of Columbia have been working to meet the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint’s 2025 deadline for adopting the policies and practices to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollution to the Bay and its waterways. Despite significant water quality improvements, the partners are unlikely to meet most of these goals by 2025.

EPA administers the federal Chesapeake Bay Program, which coordinates the cleanup effort. The Bay Program also provides grant funding for restoration and research activities among a wide range of federal, state, and local government agencies, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations across the Bay’s six-state watershed.

EPA’s fiscal 2025 budget calls for Congress to continue funding the Bay Program at $92 million annually.

EPA and the Bay states set out on this path back when I arrived in the region in 1985. The most recent iteration of the plan was an estimated $25 Billion plan to "save the bay" by 1925. Well, the money has been spent, and while there has been a some progress, nutrients are down, anoxia may be slightly less than in the bad old days, and seagrasses are doing better, for the most part, most the resources sought in the Bay have not recovered to the desired levels. Striped Bass are in trouble, again, crabs are up and down (as usual), and oysters, while slightly better than they had been, but nowhere near historical landings. 

So for another $92 million a year, the EPA will keep on keeping on. As Milton Freidman once said,  "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."