Thanks to Josh Saks and other NWF staff for putting this list together.

Section 432: Prohibiting Rules to Protect Streams from Surface Mining – Keeps the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement within the Department of the Interior from continuing work to revise regulations adopted in the waning days of the Bush administration that opened up streams to destructive and polluting practices associated with surface coal mining. The Obama administration has acknowledged both substantive and legal flaws with the Bush administration rule and needs urging to accelerate its efforts on this rule, not a directive to stop work.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 433: Blocking EPA Oversight of Mountaintop Removal Mining – Shields mountaintop removal coal mining operations from EPA review by stopping EPA and the Corps of Engineers from continuing a process they put in place in April 2010, to scrutinize proposed mining permits. In addition, it suspends the use of an internal EPA memo that explains to agency personnel how the scientific evidence of the harms associated with mountaintop removal projects should be taken into account as EPA reviews permits issued to mine operators by the Corps of Engineers and states. The EPA’s policies are based on peer-reviewed scientific literature demonstrating that waters downstream of mountaintop removal mining operations in Appalachia have such high levels of pollutants that they cannot sustain aquatic life. Preventing the EPA from relying on the best science and conducting more rigorous permit reviews will accelerate the destruction of Appalachia’s lands and waters. The EPA estimates that mountaintop removal mining has already destroyed some 2,000 miles of Appalachian streams.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 434: Interrupting Agency Review of Coal Ash Standards – Toxic coal ash, or coal combustion waste, is the second largest industrial waste stream and has no minimum federal disposal standards. Coal ash is a well-documented threat to human health and the environment, and contains hazardous chemicals including: arsenic, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, lead, and mercury. Due to largely unregulated dumping, coal ash poses a threat to our waterways and drinking water. For these reasons, EPA has undertaken a rulemaking to establish minimum standards for the disposal and handling of coal ash. Interest from industry, experts, and affected communities yielded over 450,000 public comments, and the EPA is presently evaluating this feedback on their proposed standards. This amendment seeks to defund any rulemaking that would regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste, thus foreclosing any regulatory scheme that provides for federally enforceable regulations. EPA should complete the ongoing rulemaking, evaluate stakeholder feedback, and apply the best available science to ensure robust and effective standards that protect public health.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 435: Water of the United States – Would halt EPA’s ongoing work to clarify which waters remain protected by the Clean Water Act in the wake of confusing court decisions. EPA estimates that roughly 117 million Americans get at least some drinking water from systems that rely on headwaters and other critical streams for all or part of their supply. Many of those streams are at risk of being denied Clean Water Act protections today.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 436: Preventing EPA’s Ability to Regulate the Largest Water Users – This rider prevents EPA from developing and proposing standards for the use of cooling water at power plants under 316(b) of the Clean Water Act. Power plants are the largest water users in the country,with approximately 500 power plants still using the most antiquated and destructive type of cooling system known as once-through cooling. Each of these plants can withdraw at least 50 million (and often more than a billion) gallons of cooling water every day. This rider prevents EPA from protecting drinking water supplies and eliminating fish kills by better regulating the source of the largest water withdrawals in the country.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 438: Forest Roads – Would amend the Clean Water Act (CWA) to create a loophole for the timber industry, exempting it from pollutant discharge permit requirements for silvicultural activities. For nearly forty years the CWA has improved and protected the quality of water in this country; this rider would take a chunk out of the CWA as a gift to a special interest. This loophole would prevent both the EPA and delegated states from utilizing one of the Act’s most powerful tools to protect water quality on both public and private forested land. (According to the Forest Service, 66 million Americans’ water comes from National Forests alone. In addition, water sources and many aquatic species are affected by the 154 million hectares of private forestlands). A federal court recently confirmed that the CWA does not allow an exemption of roads used for timber harvest from the Act’s point source permit requirement designed to protect clean water. This rider is a knee-jerk reaction to this decision that would prevent states and the EPA from using permits to control water pollution caused by a broad suite of timber industry activities all over the country – including but not limited to discharges of stormwater directly to streams from roads. Not only has this rider received no public hearing, it is too broad and it doesn’t address the real issue created by the court decision: how do we reduce forest road-derived point source pollution in a wayt hat works for the timber industry and protects our nation’s valuable water resources? Instead, this exemption would allow discharges associated with a broad suite of timber management activities to proceed regardless of impacts to water, including most importantly those associated with roads. Roads are a leading threat to water quality in forested areas because they collect sediment-laden runoff that degrades water quality and alters hydrology to increase the threat of flooding. These effects can be severe, which is why the EPA and states require discharge permits for other types of industrial activities with similar impacts, including state highways, municipal stormwater, mining, and oil and gas drilling.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 439: Stormwater Discharge – This rider essentially prevents the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) from updating its stormwater discharge regulations or permits to manage runoff from post-construction sites. Increasing development and antiquated, over-taxed wastewater treatment systems mean that when it rains, untreated sewage and polluted stormwater can pour directly into rivers from sewage treatment plants and dirty streets and parking lots. Stormwater runoff can pollute our water with pathogens, excess nutrients, heavy metals and other contaminants that put people’s health at risk. These are the same rivers, lakes and other water bodies that we rely upon as drinking water sources and for fishing and swimming. Preventing EPA from updating and making its stormwater safeguards more effective puts clean water at risk. This rider blocks EPA’s ability to use funds under this bill or any other bill to develop, adopt, implement, or enforce new stormwater regulations or guidance that would manage runoff from post-construction commercial or residential properties until 90 days after the Agency submits a study reviewing all regulatory options, including an analysis of anticipated costs and benefits and relative cost-effectiveness and impact on water quality for each. If this rider passes, EPA would be unable to work on anything besides this report and would be unable to move forward with plans to update its stormwater standards until at least 3 months after the report’s release. This rider will significantly delay efforts by the Agency to improve the programs that help to keep our water clean.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Section 446: Halts Travel Management Planning on California’s National Forests –

Requires the Forest Service to halt development and implementation of the Travel Management Plans in California until it considers allowing off road vehicle (ORV) use on routes that are currently unauthorized and illegal. This expensive review of the unauthorized routes could take years, and in the meantime the Forest Service’s ability to responsibly manage its road system – the primary threat to water quality on national forests – will be severely curtailed. This section also requires the Forest Service to change the classification of some existing roads to allow off road vehicles, even though ORV use is currently unauthorized due to safety and other concerns. Report language extends this direction to beyond California to the entire country. The Travel Management Plans that would be halted by this section were initiated by the Bush administration and have been developed over six years using millions of dollars in state and federal money with public input from thousands of stakeholders, including hunters, anglers, campers, local elected officials, hikers, environmentalists, scientists, off‐road vehicle enthusiasts, and the timber industry. This state specific rider would stop this progress in its tracks as a gift to a handful groups that were not happy with the outcome of the inclusive public process. In addition, it would interrupt the work of the Forest Service in California to protect natural resources, like water quality, while providing top notch recreational opportunities to all types of users.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Title V – Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2011

Letting More Pesticides In Our Waters By Axing Clean Water Act Protections – Would create a loophole for pesticide applicators to spray toxic chemicals directly into our waterways without complying with the only statute that was created to protect our waterbodies and us.Currently, EPA has identified more than 1,000 water ways in the United States that are impaired by pesticides. An important tool in protecting our waterways from further contamination is the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System under the Clean Water Act (CWA), whereby pesticide applicators must comply with specific permit conditions when they are applying pesticides directly into waterways. However, Title V seeks to exempt all pesticide applications from the CWA. Contrary to claims by supporters of Title V, there is no duplication between CWA protections and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). FIFRA covers pesticide manufacturers in the sale and distribution of pesticides around the U.S.; the CWA permit covers pesticide applicators to ensure that they are using pesticides in a way that protects our waterways. Furthermore, the CWA permit does not cover most agricultural practices – agricultural stormwater run-off into waterways and return flows from irrigated agriculture are already exempted from the CWA. EPA’s general pesticide permit allows pesticide spraying – it simply requires some important steps that should be taken when spraying to protect our waterways. Elimination of EPA’s pesticide permit will mean even more of these toxic poisons in the rivers that we fish in, the lakes that we swim in, and the streams that provide our drinking water.

STATUS: This provision was included in the chairman’s mark.

Amendments Added in House Appropriations Committee Markup

Florida NNC- Allowing Toxic Slime in Our Waters From Manure, Fertilizer and Sewage – One of the most egregious anti-environmental measures, with both local and national ramifications, is the Diaz-Balart amendment aimed at stopping EPA from using its funding to implement, administer or enforce new water quality standards for Florida's lakes and flowing waters, which were finalized in November. This amendment, supported by industry groups in Florida and nationwide, would even stop public education or enforcement of this rule to protect Florida's waters from excess nutrient pollution from sewage, manure and fertilizer. This pollution has caused huge toxic algae blooms of green slime in many of Florida's waters including the St. John's River. In 2008, testing by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) revealed that 1,000 miles of the state's rivers and streams, 350,000 acres of Florida's lakes and 900 square miles of its estuaries were contaminated by nutrient pollution from sewage discharges and fertilizer or manure runoff. This pollution is jeopardizing the health of aquatic ecosystems and fisheries, public health, the ability to swim and boat in lakes and rivers, and Florida's most important industry - tourism. Yet for more than a decade the state failed to finalize standards to reduce this pollution. Earthjustice, representing the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Florida Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, and St. Johns Riverkeeper petitioned the EPA to compel such standards. In August 2009, the EPA entered into a consent decree with the environmental groups,committing to propose numeric nutrient criteria for lakes and flowing waters in Florida within a year, as well as criteria for estuarine waters a year thereafter. As a result, EPA finalized water quality standards for lakes and flowing waters in Florida in November 2010. Rep. Diaz-Balart’s amendment would prohibit funding for EPA to continue to develop and enact these water quality standards, as well as to implement the public education outreach envisioned.

STATUS: This provision was offered as an amendment at Full Committee by Representative Mario Diaz-Balart

(R-FL). The amendment passed on a vote of 26 to 19.

Ballast Water – The amendment prohibits any EPA funds – including Great Lakes restoration money through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative or state revolving funds – from going to any Great Lakes state that has set stronger ballast water standards (either tougher numeric standards or faster implementation requirements) than weaker international standards or potentially weaker federal standards being developed by the U.S. Coast Guard. This amendment clearly applies to New York, which has been a leader in developing protective standards that will require the shipping industry to begin treating its ballast water before discharging it to eliminate invasive species threats. New York’s leadership has also been critical to driving the development of stronger regulations at the federal level. The language of this amendment is ambiguous, however, and could apply to strip all EPA funding from any Great Lakes state that has any requirements, including timelines, that are more stringent than federal or international requirements. This could include Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota, all of which have required that existing IMO technologies be in use on vessels by deadlines that are likely more stringent than what the Coast Guard will require. Michigan could also be threatened by this legislation, if the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality determines that technologies that have been approved by the Coast Guard are not safe for use in Michigan waters.

STATUS: This provision was offered as an amendment at Full Committee by Representative Steven LaTourette (ROH).

The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.

Wetlands Designation – The amendment prohibits funding for the EPA to designate new wetlands in emergency disaster areas. The amendment was adopted on a voice vote. The Emerson amendment prohibits EPA from regulating wetlands that were part of an emergency disaster area.

One reason these areas were flooded is that they are in floodplains because they are wetlands. This amendment would encourage development in wetlands that have already been such to disaster assistance and encourage more risky development. (In other bills, the proponents also have amendments to not map these flooded areas as floodplains.)

STATUS: This provision was offered as an amendment at Full Committee by Representative Jo Ann Emerson (RMO).

The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.