Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
be difficult and expensive for small farmers to comply with and might even drive them
out of business. In signing the Clean Water Act, “Congress did not intend [the act's
reach] to be unlimited,” averred
Don Parrish
, a lobbyist for the American Farm Bureau
Federation.
And powerful politicians—most notably Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Ok-
lahoma, the ranking member of the congressional Committee on Environment and
Public Works—said that the EPA's rules were already too difficult for operators of small
water systems to comply with.
Gene Whatley
, executive director of the Oklahoma Rural Water Association, which
represents 458 rural systems, told Inhofe's congressional committee, “Many of the reg-
ulations and water quality standards are unnecessary, and the benefits and regulations
do not justify the cost. This is a significant problem for small systems.”
Rural water suppliers were worried they wouldn't be able to afford or comply with in-
creasingly restrictive laws, Whatley said. At one Oklahoma water plant, the cost of wa-
ter treatment chemicals rose from $1,800 a month to $18,000 a month, which Whatley
blamed on more stringent EPA rules. Using their limited funds to keep up with “unne-
cessary regulations,” Whatley said, left small operators unable to afford other important
projects, such as upgrading their water treatment facilities.
But Jackson wasn't just pressured by Republicans: coal-state Democrats, such as
Representative
Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota
and Senator John D. Rockefeller of
West Virginia, attempted to weaken the EPA's authority to restrict climate-polluting
gases. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, exempted
Great Lakes shippers from strict EPA restrictions on diesel emissions from lake ship-
ping. The move—reportedly a favor done for a diesel-fuel refinery in Obey's dis-
trict—undermined an antipollution measure designed to save twelve thousand lives a
year.
By 2010, some of the environmentalists who'd questioned Jackson's fitness for the job
had been won over. Buck Parker, the former head of Earthjustice, told RollingStone,
“She's fantastic … one of the bright lights of the administration.”
But Jef Ruch
of PEER
told me it was too soon to appraise Jackson. Pointing to her “opaque” promises and
her “waffling” on mountaintop removal, he said that many of Jackson's pronouncements
“appear to be more hype than reality. Many of the plaudits she has received have been
for low-hanging fruit. On issues requiring heavy lifting the jury is still out.”
Search WWH ::
Custom Search