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Friday May 2, 1997

EPA to Move Ahead with Streamlined ANPRM Process
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to proceed with development of a streamlined advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) for revising its national water quality standards program, and plans to meet with key stakeholder groups -- including AMSA -- over the next six weeks to find common areas of agreement on how to revise the program.

The agency's decision to proceed with the ANPRM follows a recent vigorous push by AMSA to encourage EPA to move forward with the rule revision process, in the face of strong lobbying efforts by environmentalists and states to encourage a suspension of the process (see March edition of the AMSA Clean Water News). The environmental groups believed that the process would weaken an already weak and overly flexible system," and the states questioned whether it was an "appropriate vehicle." AMSA asserted that the ANPRM would allow for "broad stakeholder input" that was not considered during the original development of the water quality standards regulation.

The agency will use the stakeholder approach to build consensus in identifying short- and long-term goals, priority issues, and on determining what issues can be addressed by policy guidance and which ones by rulemaking. The AMSA Water Quality Committee leadership will meet with key EPA officials early next week to discuss the Association's continuing role in the process, priority issues, and how the program can be conducted under a watershed management framework.

House Committee Displays Commitment to CWA Reauthorization
Majority and minority leaders of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee last week signaled their intent to reauthorize the Clean Water Act (CWA) this Congress. In an April 25 letter by Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) and James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chair and minority leader of the committee respectively, and Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Robert Borski, chair and minority leader of the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, the leaders exhort CWA stakeholder groups to enter into discussions with each other to develop consensus positions and recommendations on key issue areas. The letter, which notes calls bi-partisan legislation reathorizing the CWA in the 105th Congress an "important goal," adds that the committee will "convene an initial meeting with interested parties" to discuss consensus positions in more detail, and suggested that more CWA hearings will be held. Key issues that the committee plans to address in this effort include: infrastructure funding, point source regulation, watershed protection approaches, wetlands, enforcement, nonpoint source control, and wet weather flows.

AMSA Urges Careful Congressional Consideration of Privatization
AMSA this week urged the House Appropriations Committee to carefully consider the impacts of any legislation that would encourage the private sector funding of public wastewater treatment facilities. In a May 2 letter to the committee, AMSA expresses "serious concerns" about "both the content and quality" of an EPA draft report on the viability of privatization and urges committee members to examine the Association's report, Evaluating Privatization: An AMSA Checklist during their consideration of the issue. The letter concludes that, "Above all, it is important to recognize that POTW privatization doesn't mean that someone else is footing the bill. Ratepayers are still ultimately responsible for the cost of building, operating and maintaining wastewater facilities," and warns that no analysis has been performed on the effects of privatization on ratepayers.