Biden's Election Could Lead To Chesapeake Bay TMDL Litigation Settlement

摘要

Environmentalists are hopeful that President-elect Joe Biden's administration will be willing to work with them and several states to resolve litigation over EPA's alleged failure to enforce cleanup goals for the Chesapeake Bay, just as the Obama administration reached a settlement over similar litigation filed during the George W Bush administration. "We're optimistic lightning will strike twice," Jon Mueller, Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) vice president for litigation, said Nov. 9 during the University of Maryland Agriculture Law Education Initiative's annual conference. However, "right now, it's too early to tell" whether that will happen, he said. CBF President William Baker noted in a Nov. 9 statement on Biden's election that "[a]s a senator from Delaware and as vice president, Joe Biden has been a reliable partner in the decades-long effort to save the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and streams." CBF, the Maryland Watermen's Association, Anne Arundel County, MD, and two Virginia farmers sued EPA Sept. 10 for failing to ensure Pennsylvania and New York meet the terms of the EPA-developed Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan, known as a total maximum daily load (TMDL).