InsideSources

The final day of the Environmental Council of States conference culminated in a keynote address by Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt. It was a time for Pruitt to reassure the states about EPA’s goals under the new president and to hear concerns from council members. Although panel discussions earlier in the week had addressed infrastructure spending and details of American water systems, Pruitt’s talk emphasized themes more often discussed in constitutional law classes: the rule of law, cooperative federalism, and the rulemaking process.

“For the last several years that confidence in the rule of law has been put in doubt,” said Pruitt, who described how EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act grew ten-fold under President Obama. As federal regulations expanded so dramatically, they increasingly cut into the role played by the states. 

As the number of regulations soared, it became increasingly difficult for businesses and individuals to know which rules they were being governed by and how to ensure they were in compliance with the laws. Pruitt called this “regulatory uncertainty” an impediment to economic growth and development.

“Rule of law does matter because it provides clarity to those you are regulating,” Pruitt said. To fix this problem, he spoke of changing the EPA’s internal processes to include comments from states and industry, instead of using the courts and agency directives to pass rules. In short, the days of the pen and the phone are gone.

“We are working at re-establishing a commitment to the rule making process and not allowing degrees to dictate the rule making process,” Pruitt continued.

In practice, this approach will draw on the states to play a much larger role in determining how the EPA should allocate its resources. Here Pruitt’s speech echoed comments made by ECOS panelists yesterday, who discussed ways for the EPA and states to work together to ensure that personnel were not wasted in needless duplication. Pruitt called the approach “cooperative federalism,” and spoke of allowing states and industry partners to help the EPA determine policies and approaches that worked, rather than forcing a top-down, one-size-fits-all policy.

Although many in the audience were no doubt encouraged by Pruitt’s willingness to allow the states greater latitude to develop their own policies, not everyone was pleased. Hecklers tried to disrupt the speech at one point by attempting to shout questions to Pruitt about clean drinking water in cities while he was talking. Unfazed, he continued to speak, but several lines of his speech were difficult to hear. Security quickly escorted the women out of the room.

Afterward, Pruitt made light of the situation, saying that, “This is something, like in a baseball game, that sometimes happens.”

In fact, many of the issues Pruitt addressed were concerns that ECOS members had discussed, including the need to renovate America’s aging water and sewer infrastructure, and ways to expedite the permitting process to allow new construction projects to begin. Pruitt agreed with the representatives and discussed how the Trump administration was moving to set up task forces to focus on improving the permitting process for state, local, and tribal-level water projects.

“The infrastructure discussion is not just about roads and bridges,” agreed Pruitt. “It is about water issues.”

Speeding up the process would create tangible benefits for states and local communities. Throughout his speech, Pruitt focused on changes like these, where progress could be seen in the numbers. One specific area was Superfund sites. There are currently more than 1,300 Superfund sites around the country, including some that have been included on the list for 30 to 40 years.

Already, his office has meetings with twenty state governors to discuss ways of cleaning these sites.

“We need to set clear benchmark objectives that we want to achieve in each of these areas,” said Pruitt.

It’s a phrase that he could have applied to many of his suggestions. However, with clear benchmarks and a commitment to the rule of law, the EPA is trying to achieve its goals of cleaner air and water, while also encouraging growth and development.

Follow Erin on Twitter.

Subscribe for the Latest From InsideSources Every Morning

When President Donald Trump announced his proposed budget, environmentalists across the country gasped at his proposal to dramatically cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency. At the same time, others rejoiced at the prospect of major infrastructure expansion, hoping that America would finally get the quality roads and bridges it deserved. But what do these proposals mean at the state level?

This week, the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) met in Washington, D.C. to discuss environmental protection and infrastructure development in the U.S. and how the various levels of government needed to work together to work with the realities of limited budgets and manpower. The ECOS conference provided a venue for states to discuss concerns and share solutions.

Founded in 1993, ECOS is a  national nonprofit, nonpartisan association of state and territorial environmental agency leaders. Funded through both dues as well as federal moneys and private donations, the group meets to try to help coordinate state environmental agencies. Its goal is to improve the capability of state environmental agencies to protect both the environment and public health.

On Thursday, the discussion at the ECOS conference focused on how to best manage cooperation between the Environmental Protection Agency and state governments, and Trump’s proposed infrastructure investment.

Each of the 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and the territory of Puerto Rico has a representative at the ECOS conference. The representatives listened to various panel discussions by figures from federal and state environmental as well as different related industries. Afterwards they met for several closed-door meetings.

Given Trump’s plan to cut EPA spending, the states discussed methods of properly prioritizing resources to ensure that important environmental protection standards were still upheld. ECOS believes that the states should have the ability to make their own decisions, without the EPA coming back later to repeat their work. However, they also acknowledge that some double-checking was likely necessary.

“Where is the avoidance of duplication? Where is duplication appropriate?” asked Robert Perciasepe, former acting administrator of the EPA. “If you look at environmental protection in the United States and only look at what states do or what the federal government does, you won’t get the full picture.” 

Instead, he hoped for a solution where states and the EPA could coordinate “so that the right people go to the right places, rather than two people going to the same place.”

The ECOS conference panelists themselves were hesitant to provide too many details on what such coordination would require though. Overall, the group was largely uncertain as to the effect Trump’s proposed slashing of the EPA budget would have.

On the subject of infrastructure spending, on the other hand, the ECOS conference had a far more unified opinion. Representatives from both cities and states emphasized the need for specific changes to infrastructure financing and worried that municipal bonding could be restructured under proposed tax reform.

The topics weren’t perhaps as sexy as new highways, but the speakers stressed how much effect small changes could have on American cities and towns.

“You have to look at the infrastructure discussion writ large in combination with tax reform,” said Quin Shea, vice president of the environment at the Edison Electric Institute. “Tax reform ideas that work really well for a lot of other industries don’t work well for us.”

Raising the tax rate on municipal bonds could threaten an important source of funding for infrastructure repairs at a time when the money is desperately needed. When infrastructure is discussed, most people think of roads and bridges. However, America’s water and sewer systems are aging as well.

Most rely on local municipalities for their maintenance funding. Particularly in rural areas, cities and towns can quickly become overburdened by these costs. There are some 5300 community water systems regulated under the Clean Drinking Water Act. Already many of them are struggling to keep costs down for residents given a limited customer base.

On top of this, EPA regulations can exacerbate the funding problem. Drinking and waste water are treated differently by the federal government. At a local level, municipalities often fund projects on both systems from the same budget. Recently, the EPA has begun cracking down on cities with combined sewer overflow systems, which collect rainwater runoff, domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater in the same pipe for transportation to a wastewater treatment facility.

By forcing cities to redesign these systems, the EPA was draining their budgets and at times leaving consumers with much higher bills. However, the municipalities at the ECOS conference often felt that dealing with angry residents was preferable to tussling with the EPA.

“Many of my cities would rather be sued by you guys than by the EPA,” quipped Judy Sheahan of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

As important as the funding is, the permitting process also needs reform.

“What I am focused on is siting and permitting,” said Shea. “These processes have to become simpler at the state and federal level if we want infrastructure development to continue.”

On this topic, states were able to discuss different approaches to solving the same problem. Arkansas, for example, passed new legislation allowing the court system to speedily grant permits. Other states spoke of requirements that permits be reviewed and granted within a particular time frame. Still, representatives from several states pushed back on the idea that bureaucratic reform along could expedite the process. One representative argued that states would be unlikely to maintain a faster permitting process unless they received public grades.

Follow Erin on Twitter.

Subscribe for the Latest From InsideSources Every Morning

Gov. Chris Sununu pushed for right-to-work and for a repeal of a required permit to carry a concealed weapon, but he’s also advocating for an issue that’s not often discussed — improving New Hampshire’s water infrastructure.

It’s something Sununu hopes to accomplish during his two-year term, and he’s starting by focusing on safe drinking water and regulations on stormwater runoff. Yet, it’s a difficult issue to navigate. In order to tackle water infrastructure, he needs to balance U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, concerns from environmental advocacy groups, and the cost on municipalities and taxpayers.

For Sununu, a key part of water infrastructure is safe drinking water. Senate President Chuck Morse, R-Salem, introduced Wednesday an amendment that would allow for a loan from the Drinking and Groundwater Trust Fund to assist in connecting homes with contaminated water in Amherst to the public water supply.

“Clean drinking water is a top priority for all Granite Staters, and today I’ve submitted a proposal to help leverage MtBE settlement funds to ensure homes contaminated with drinking water are connected to local, clean water supply,” he said in a statement. “This legislation I’ve proposed today would make use of the trust fund resources by sending $5 million to DES [Department of Environmental Services]. These funds would be loaned to Textiles Coated International, Inc. in order to provide homes and businesses affected by PFOA [perfluorooctanoic acid] in Amherst, New Hampshire the ability to connect to the public water supply.”

The drinking water and groundwater trust fund, which has more than $250 million in it, was created last year after the state’s successful court case against Exxon-Mobil over groundwater contamination caused by the gasoline additive MtBE.

Morse’s amendment is likely to be attached to Senate Bill 57, which would make appropriations to the DES for the purposes of funding eligible drinking water and wastewater projects under the state aid grant program. The bill has been “laid on the table” in the Senate Finance Committee and is expected to be picked up again.

Sununu immediately applauded the initiative saying the Drinking Water and Groundwater Trust Fund should be used as an asset to ensure public health safety and provide funds for water infrastructure projects.

“There is no more important display of public trust than each time we, as citizens, turn on our faucets — a trust that our government has done its job in ensuring clean water for us and our children,” he said in a statement. “This is an excellent example of a prudent use of the Trust Fund, as the legislative and executive branches are working together to employ existing expertise and responsible corporate citizenship to solve a real problem.”

The Granite State has had a serious problem with high PFOA levels, especially in southern parts of the state. A recent Department of Health and Human Services report on 322 people who participated in their perfluorochemicals (PFC) blood testing program found PFOA levels that are twice as high as the national average. PFCs have been used in industrial applications and consumer products for several decades, including food wrapping, carpeting, metal plating, and firefighting foams, according to the EPA website

“At high concentrations, certain PFCs have been linked to adverse health effects in laboratory animals that may reflect associations between exposure to these chemicals and some health problems such as low birth weight, delayed puberty onset, elevated cholesterol levels and reduced immunologic responses to vaccination,” states the EPA site.

Sununu is very adamant about ensuring there is safe drinking water across the state, mentioning its importance in his budget speech. He also reiterated this in an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio after his remarks.

“We’ve seen what happened recently in Detroit; we’ve seen what’s happened in other parts of the country,” he said. “We can’t let that happen here. I’ve asked Senator Morse to lead the efforts and not just put $1 million or $2 million out but really unleash the power of the $300 million fund and start addressing this issue not tomorrow, not with more studies and blue ribbon commissions, but start unleashing this money today to look at how we address our public-water system, address the contaminated wells that we have, and really put significant dollars out there so that a slight problem of today doesn’t become a crisis of tomorrow.”

Although not directly related, Sununu has also been a strong advocate for rolling back unnecessary regulations, including environmental ones, that could have an impact on stormwater runoff for cities and towns — it’s all part his plan of working on New Hampshire’s water infrastructure.

Tom Irwin, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation New Hampshire, said stormwater runoff could impact drinking water, but “it’s very site specific.”

“There are communities that get their drinking water from the Merrimack River,” he told NH Journal. “There is no question that stormwater pollution flows into that river. What impact that has on the public water supply system is an important question, but also a very site specific question.”

Still, some residents are concerned about Sununu cutting back regulations and the impact that could have on drinking water and stormwater runoff. In the same NHPR interview, he responded to one of the listener’s concerns about rolling back regulations. He said his goal with that is to not have too many regulations hurting businesses in the state.

“When we talk about the regulatory burdens, we’re talking about the burdens that businesses face and issues like that — not so much with the drinking-water issues that we have,” he said. “So we have to take very careful precautions when we talk about breaking down regulations – that’s more in the business sector. We’re going to be very vigilant about making sure that we’re protecting drinking water. We’re going to unleash some funds and get people the services they need.”

Sununu is so serious about cutting regulations that he sent a letter Friday to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on the “overly burdensome” municipal storm water discharge permit that could be costly for municipalities.

The EPA’s regulations — known as the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, or MS4, permit — fall under the authority of the federal Clean Water Act. New Hampshire is one of only four states, including Massachusetts, in which the EPA, rather than a state environmental agency, is responsible for setting and enforcing Clean Water Act stormwater rules.

The MS4 permit was updated on January 18, two days before President Donald Trump took office and Sununu said they were “more stringent and wide ranging” than the previous one.

“We rarely trust in our government as much as when we turn on the water tap expecting clean water,” Sununu wrote in the letter. “That being said additional mandates within the new MS4 will prove themselves overly burdensome and enormously expensive for many New Hampshire communities. Even if these federal mandates disappeared tomorrow, New Hampshire would not cease to keep our waters clean.”

The Trump administration, including Pruitt, has repeatedly said it wants to roll back regulations at the EPA. Pruitt has not indicated if he plans to roll back the MS4 permit regulation.

Municipalities like Dover, Portsmouth, and Rochester have said the cost of implementing the new regulations would be significant, over $1 million, and could fall on taxpayers to help pay for all of it. Rochester indicated it could spend up to $25 million on updating its city water infrastructure to comply with the regulations.

Irwin said some of these cost estimates were “unbelievable.”

“Some of the numbers we have seen are somewhat unbelievable,” he said. “I don’t know exactly how they [Rochester] got to a $25 million figure. There seems to be a case of exaggeration taking place. It’s hard to fathom how they got to some of those numbers.”

Irwin said the new regulations are an improvement on the previous one, but they are still enough to tackle all the problems with stormwater runoff pollution. He said his organization filed a petition in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals because they believe the regulations need to go further.

“We certainly hope that the new administrator [Pruitt] does not interfere with the new permit that was issued,” he said. “It’s very concerning with a new administrator that there’s a new feeling for environmental protections to be weakened.”

Sununu asked Pruitt to visit to see how these regulations would impact New Hampshire communities.

“I know that by listening to those on the front lines, we can illustrate our desire to balance sensible regulations with local freedoms and responsibilities,” he wrote.

Follow Kyle on Twitter.

Sign up for NH Journal’s must-read morning political newsletter.