The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a fundamental attack on Clean Water Act protection this week, opening a new front in their war against the environment, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Without a hearing or subcommittee mark-up, Republicans controlling the Committee approved H.R. 2018, which reverses the basic premises of the Clean Water Act – that what one state affects the waters in other states, and that state policies alone failed miserably to provide waters that are safe for drinking, swimming and fishing.
This bill would prevent EPA from requiring states to develop effective clean water protection policies. Under the measure, EPA would be powerless to act even if it found a state-issued Clean Water Act permit to be inadequate.
"This bill is a recipe for increased pollution, dirtier waters and more mountaintop removal mining," says Jon Devine, senior attorney in the water program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Its supporters seem intent on taking us back to the ‘good old days’ when rivers like the Cuyahoga caught fire and Lake Erie was declared dead. We will continue to fight it vigorously if it comes to the House floor."
Suit Launched to Force EPA to Address Black Carbon Pollution
The Center for Biological Diversity notified the Environmental Protection Agency of its intent to file a lawsuit against the agency for its failure to take action to reduce black carbon, a potent global warming pollutant.
Last year, the Center filed a formal petition asking the EPA to set water-quality criteria for black carbon, or soot to help protect sea ice and glaciers under the Clean Water Act. Today’s notice of intent to sue urges the agency to respond promptly to the Center’s petition.
"Black carbon is both hazardous to human health and a potent global warming pollutant that’s speeding up the melt of Arctic sea ice and glaciers around the world," says Matt Vespa, a senior attorney with the Center. "The EPA has a duty to use the Clean Water Act to help reduce this dangerous pollutant."
Generated from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels and biomass, black carbon is a solid particle that warms the atmosphere in two ways. In the atmosphere, its dark color absorbs heat and raises the temperature of the air. When it lands on ice and snow, it darkens these surfaces, thereby absorbing heat and increasing melting. Over the course of the Arctic spring, black-carbon-contaminated snow and ice can melt weeks earlier than clean snow and ice.
Due to its warming effects in the air and on ice and snow, black carbon is considered one of the largest contributors to global warming after carbon dioxide pollution, attributable to a full half of climate change. In addition to its strong warming effect, black carbon also has profound impacts on public health, contributing to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year.
The Center’s notice to the EPA today comes on the heels of a United Nations report that concludes the control of black carbon particles "through rapid implementation of proven emission reduction measures would have immediate and multiple benefits for human well-being."
If current trends continue, many of the glaciers in the continental US, including all of the glaciers in Glacier National Park, will disappear within the next 25-30 years. Scientists believe the Arctic could be ice-free in the summer by 2030. Summer sea ice has already decreased by more than 40%, or one million square miles since the 1970s.
Because black carbon stays in the atmosphere for less than a month, however, reductions in black-carbon emissions yield immediate environmental and public health benefits. According to a report released earlier this month, controlling black carbon soot emissions could cut the rate of climate change by half.
"Reducing black-carbon pollution today buys critically needed time to achieve the deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gases that are ultimately necessary to preserve sea ice and glaciers," says Vespa. "But the window of opportunity to act is closing rapidly."
If the EPA were to adopt water quality criteria for black carbon, each state with glaciers (Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Washington and Wyoming) or sea ice (Alaska) would either need to adopt the EPA standard or set its own. Those standards would then become the basis for developing controls on the release of black carbon to protect sea ice and glaciers from this dangerous pollutant.
Emissions from diesel engines, particularly from ships and older heavy-duty vehicles and construction equipment, are a primary domestic source of black carbon.
The notice of intent gives the EPA 60 days to correct the alleged violations before the Center pursues legal action.
Read our article which summarizes the importance of immediately addressing black carbon and other short lived greenhouse gas pollutants:
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