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Friday May 23, 1997
House Committee Seeks Stakeholder Consensus on CWA Issues
Majority and minority staff for the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee this week encouraged AMSA and other Clean Water Act (CWA) stakeholders to enter into negotiations with each other in an effort to reach consensus on key CWA issues. The May 20 meeting was called by committee staff to provide follow up to an April 25 bipartisan letter by the committee's leadership that urged cooperation among stakeholders in the development of CWA legislation.
During the meeting, Ben Grumbles, committee majority counsel, said the committee leadership is interested in "a fresh new look at [CWA] reauthorization," and encouraged stakeholders to realistically look at what issues can best be addressed in new legislation. This theme was echoed by the committee's minority counsel, Ken Kopocis, who said stakeholder negotiations should center on the current statute and its implementation, not on past reauthorization attempts such as H.R. 961. He added that stakeholders should seek "common ground" instead of "middle ground" on key issues such as nonpoint source control, which he noted would be a likely candidate for a future hearing.
The committee staff plan to schedule another meeting with the stakeholders in about one month, and have offered to meet with individual stakeholder groups upon request. Additional CWA developments, along with other legislative news, will be forwarded to the membership via an upcoming Legislative Update.
AMSA has been engaged in CWA reauthorization discussions with other stakeholder groups for the past few months in an effort to find common ground on some of the more outstanding issues, and will continue to work with other stakeholders to forge a CWA consensus. In particular, AMSA and other municipal groups have been meeting with state organizations, such as the National Governors' Association, to discuss such municipal issues as stormwater and other sources of wet weather induced water quality impairments. The Association has also been meeting with agricultural groups to discuss nonpoint source issues. AMSA President Cecil Lue-Hing and Executive Director Ken Kirk are scheduled to meet with representatives of the American Farm Bureau Federation in Chicago on June 4.
TMDL Task Force To Hold Third Meeting in June
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) federal advisory task force on total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) will hold its third meeting June 11-13, in Milwaukee, Wisc., where members will receive recommendations from four of the committee's workgroups and receive briefings on agricultural issues. Committee members will seek consensus on the workgroup recommendations for improving the science and tools that support the TMDL program and on approaches for developing criteria for TMDL approval and implementation. The committee will also seek consensus on EPA management approaches, program oversight, and approaches for listing impaired waters. During the committee's first two meetings, members identified key TMDL issues, established workgroups, and received briefings on TMDL issues from EPA and state officials. AMSA is represented on the committee by Cheryl Creson, director of the department of engineering for Sacramento County, Calif. For a detailed agenda of the upcoming meeting, contact Mark Hoeke at AMSA, 202/833-9106.