Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
WHITMAN UNVEILS WATER POLLUTION CREDIT-TRADING PROGRAM
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman has formally
launched the Bush administration's controversial new water quality trading
policy, aimed at providing market-based incentives for pollution abatement.
Whitman outlined the policy -- one that will allow polluters who can cut their
discharges more sharply than federal standards require, at relatively low cost,
to sell "credits" to others for whom abatement efforts could be prohibitive --
at a press briefing Monday at the National Press Club in Washington.
She said that while environmental efforts to date have largely eliminated
problems caused by the direct discharge of pollutants into waterways, about half
of U.S. rivers, streams and lakes still suffer from pollution from such
"non-point" sources as runoff from sometimes distant farms and streets.
It is those non-point sources within a watershed that the trading policy is
aimed at addressing, by offering "incentives to encourage action by those who
can achieve reductions easily and cost-effectively," Whitman said.
She gave the example of a farmer and a wastewater treatment plant located within
the same watershed. The farmer, she postulated, could reduce sediment and
nutrient runoff from his land by making relatively inexpensive changes in his
practices such as reducing his use of fertilizer or planting a buffer strip of
shrubs and trees next to a stream, while the treatment plant could be faced with
a major capital investment to meet environmental standards.
"Under our new water quality trading policy, the treatment plant could pay the
farmer to make the changes at the farm that would achieve the same level of
reductions -- or better -- the plant is required to achieve," Whitman explained.
She deemed this "a win-win-win situation," under which the farmer would get
extra income, the treatment plant would lower expenses, "and, what's most
important, the watershed benefits because it is receiving less sediment and
nutrient runoff, which means cleaner, purer water for all those who live within
the watershed."
The program she described has similarities to the acid rain cap-and-trade
program already in effect -- one that EPA officials say has been highly
effective and helped reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by one-third from 1990
levels at much lower cost than had been anticipated.
Other EPA officials at the briefing said water quality trading programs already
have been tried in about a dozen states across the country, including Idaho,
Colorado, Connecticut and Michigan, and that their use nationally could save the
public hundreds of millions of dollars.
Thomas Morrissey, director of planning and standards for the Connecticut
Department of Environmental Protection, also appearing with Whitman, reported
major success from his state's program and praised what he termed "a logical
departure from the command-and-control approaches to environmental regulation"
at the heart of anti-pollution efforts over the past 30 years.
And Thomas Morgan, general manager of the Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board
of Montgomery, Ala. -- the type of facility that could employ the new trading
approach -- said adoption of the policy "is like Christmas all over again for
us."
The trading plan has drawn a sharply mixed response from environmental groups.
Paul Faeth, managing director of the World Resources Institute, appeared at the
press briefing with Whitman and proclaimed trading "a cheaper answer to solving
water quality problems in the United States and around the world," encouraging
steps to meet targets by "those who can do so least expensively."
Its use will allow states and others to make use of conservation innovation
grants provided in the 2002 farm bill, Faeth said.
"It's a bit unusual for an environmental policy group to stand up with EPA these
days to applaud a change in policy, but that's exactly what I'm here to do
today," Faeth said.
But other groups condemned the plan.
The Natural Resources Defense Council issued a statement declaring the trading
approach to be illegal.
"This new policy violates the Clean Water Act, which protects all of our
waterways from pollution, not just some," said Nancy Stoner, director of the
group's Clean Water Project. "Under this scheme, the water quality in some of
our lakes, streams and rivers will be traded away for the benefit of other
waterways. The EPA is trading good quality water for bad."
The statement noted that the NRDC and other environmental groups support
cap-and-trade programs with pollution limits that decline over time.
"The new EPA policy, however, does not require a cap, does not require polluters
to reduce their discharges over time, and allows polluters to avoid compliance
by simply buying credits," it said.
That means, Stoner said, that "our waterways are for sale," and "only corporate
polluters will benefit."
And while an EPA fact sheet described the program currently contemplated as
limited to trading of nutrient and sediment load reductions, NRDC asserted that
the new policy would allow polluters to trade for release of toxic materials,
such as mercury.
On this point, the EPA fact sheet acknowledges that the policy "recognizes the
potential for environmental benefits from trading of pollutants other than
nutrients and sediments," but adds, "these trades may warrant more scrutiny."
"The policy does not support any trading activity that would cause a toxic
effect, exceed a human health criterion or cause an impairment of water quality.
EPA does not support trading of persistent bioaccumulative toxic pollutants at
this time," the fact sheet says.
-- Ralph Dannheisser