Focus
EPA threatens to cut California’s highway funding over Clean Air Act ‘failure’
Los Angeles Times – September 24
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler on Monday sent a letter to the California Air Resources Board threatening to cut federal transportation funding from the state as punishment for not submitting timely pollution-control plans. Wheeler accused the state of having failed for decades to take required steps under the Clean Air Act, by allowing a backlog of more than 130 inactive smog-reduction plans to accumulate. A senior EPA official insisted the move was unrelated to the administration’s revocation, announced last week, of a decades-old rule that empowers California to set tougher car emissions standards than those required by the federal government. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a coalition of 22 other states have sued the administration over the revocation, arguing that the state’s stricter pollution rules were lawful and needed to improve air quality.
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News
EPA says California must take more steps to protect water from human waste
Reuters – September 26
The EPA escalated its feud with California this Thursday, accusing the state in a letter of violating the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and Safe Drinking Water Act by allowing human waste from homeless residents to enter waterways. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s letter said that Governor Gavin Newsom and the mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles “do not appear to be acting with urgency” to mitigate the public health risks from “untreated human waste entering nearby waters.” Wheeler said that he wanted to “outline the deficiencies” in how California safeguards its water and to require the state to detail how it will respond. San Francisco Mayor London Breed rejected the assertions as politically motivated and says there is “no relationship between homelessness and water quality in San Francisco.”
California, environmental groups sue EPA over protection of S.F. Bay salt ponds
San Francisco Chronicle – September 24
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Bay Area conservation groups on Tuesday sued the EPA for failing to protect Redwood City’s salt ponds under the CWA. The lawsuits, filed separately in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claim the agency’s decision earlier this month to halt protections of many waterways, including the 1,365 acres of salt ponds, by rolling back the 2015 Waters of the United States rule was illegal. The rollback removes from CWA jurisdiction ponds and sloughs unconnected to larger bodies of water, and therefore makes it easier to develop thousands of miles of streams and wetlands. The salt ponds have been owned since 1978 by Cargill Inc., which withdrew a proposal to build 12,000 homes on the flats in 2012 in the face of intense community opposition.
Coalition of 17 states sues U.S. Interior over weakening of Endangered Species Act
The Hill – September 25
A coalition of state Attorneys General, led by California, Maryland, and Massachusetts, are suing the U.S. Interior Department over recent changes made to the way it enforces the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit follows the administration’s announcement in August that it would weaken protections on various plants and animals, including opting to no longer regulate threatened species to the same degree as endangered species and allowing economic factors to be weighed before adding a species to the list.
California Supreme Court temporarily halts Shasta Dam study
Record Searchlight – September 25
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a temporary injunction issued by a Shasta County Superior Court ordering the Fresno-based Westlands Water District (District) to stop work on an environmental impact report studying raising the height of Shasta Dam 18½ feet. The California Attorney General's Office and several other environmental and industry groups had sued the District, claiming that its work on the environmental report violated state law and that raising the height of the dam would harm the McCloud River, which is protected under state law. Raising the lake level would inundate about two-thirds of a mile of the McCloud River, according to an earlier environmental report from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Trial on the issue of whether the District can move forward with its study is set for Spring 2020.
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