Bill Text: FL H1401 | 2011 | Regular Session | Comm Sub

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Bill Title: Federal Intrusion into State's Clean Water Program

Spectrum: Strong Partisan Bill (Republican 11-1)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2011-05-07 - Indefinitely postponed and withdrawn from consideration [H1401 Detail]

Download: Florida-2011-H1401-Comm_Sub.html

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CS/HM 1401

1	House Memorial
2	A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging
3	Congress to keep the United States Environmental
4	Protection Agency from overextending its mandate and to
5	direct the agency not to intrude into Florida's previously
6	approved clean water program.
7
8	WHEREAS, on December 7, 2010, the State of Florida filed a
9	lawsuit against the United States Environmental Protection
10	Agency over federal intrusion into Florida's clean water
11	program, and
12	WHEREAS, the lawsuit alleges that the agency's action is
13	inconsistent with the intent of Congress when it based the Clean
14	Water Act on the idea of cooperative federalism whereby the
15	states would be responsible for the control of water quality
16	with oversight by the agency, and
17	WHEREAS, the control of nutrient loading from predominately
18	nonpoint sources involves traditional states' rights and
19	responsibilities for water and land resource management, which
20	Congress expressly intended to preserve in the Clean Water Act,
21	and
22	WHEREAS, the lawsuit specifically alleges that the agency's
23	rule and its January 2009 necessity determination for adopting
24	numeric nutrient water quality criteria for Florida's waters
25	were arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion, and
26	requests the court to enjoin the agency's administrator from
27	implementing the numeric water quality criteria for Florida in
28	the rule, and
29	WHEREAS, prior to the agency's announcement that it would
30	be implementing new rules for Florida, the state had been
31	diligently working through its Total Maximum Daily Load Program
32	to adopt numeric standards for impaired bodies of water, and
33	WHEREAS, the agency had already approved Florida's Total
34	Maximum Daily Load Program on the basis that it was sufficient
35	to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act, as referenced
36	in a letter dated September 28, 2007, and
37	WHEREAS, as recently as January 2010, the agency praised
38	Florida for implementing "some of the most progressive nutrient
39	management strategies in the nation," and the Total Maximum
40	Daily Load Program had a timetable for implementation through
41	2011, and
42	WHEREAS, despite the fact that Florida was working to
43	implement its approved program and was seeing successes, the
44	agency reversed its determinations in 2009 and informed the
45	state that new federal rules and criteria would be developed and
46	implemented by the agency, preempting the approved state
47	program, and
48	WHEREAS, according to the state's lawsuit, the agency has
49	continued to rely on a methodology that is neither
50	scientifically sound nor site specific for Florida's waters, and
51	WHEREAS, in April, the agency's own Science Advisory Board
52	joined the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the
53	Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the
54	University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural
55	Sciences, the Florida Legislature, and others in expressing
56	serious concerns that the agency's methods for developing
57	numeric nutrient water quality criteria are scientifically
58	flawed, and
59	WHEREAS, the State of Florida has significant concerns with
60	regard to the cost of implementing the new numeric nutrient
61	water quality criteria proposed by the agency, NOW, THEREFORE,
62
63	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
64
65	That the Congress of the United States is urged to keep the
66	United States Environmental Protection Agency from overextending
67	its mandate and to direct the agency not to intrude into
68	Florida's previously approved clean water program.
69	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
70	dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
71	President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
72	United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
73	the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.

CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.