To mark the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) hosted a panel discussion on Thursday about the urgent need for regulatory reform as aggressive unfunded water mandates are guided by outdated regulatory approaches and collide with the ability of cities to pay for them. During the discussion, mayors called on Congress to either amend the act or ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change the way it implements the act to meet a more current, cost-efficient and smart approach.
Currently, the third most costly municipal expenditure for cities is providing safe and adequate water and wastewater infrastructure. Additionally, inflation, population growth and an aging infrastructure base continue to increase the needed investment each year. Yet even with these pre-existing costs, EPA continues to advance new water regulations and enforcement actions that expand a city's responsibility, but offer only marginal environmental or health benefits.
Despite struggling with severe budget cuts, local government, more than any other level of government, continues to invest public resources in ever-growing amounts to clean water goals: $50 billion in 1995 to over $103 billion in 2009; a total of $1.6 trillion from 1956 to 2008. Meanwhile, the federal government provides less than $2 billion per year to the States who provide loans, not grants, to local government. Estimates of needed investments over the next 20 years are staggering, and are often in the trillions of dollars.
At USCM's urging, the EPA unveiled in October 2011 a new Integrated Planning and Permitting Policy (IP3) that is intended to provide a framework for sewer overflows and storm water management, allowing federal, state and municipal governments to collaborate more effectively.
However, cities continue to be frustrated by the way in which the EPA, especially the EPA's regional offices, is implementing the CWA and contend that the agency's overall expectations that local government continually increase investments to comply with clean water rules is unrealistic and ignores the reality of limited public finances.
Amending the Clean Water Act
· Require EPA accountability for identifying the cumulative cost impact of water and wastewater mandates and a realistic accounting of public benefits
· Consider a congressionally imposed cap on overall water compliance costs
· Institutionalize flexibility and incentivize smart investments
· Shield local governments from third-party suits if they are engaged in a permit to achieve compliance
· Match compliance schedules to local affordability
Adjusting the EPA Regulatory Approach
· EPA should be partners, not prosecutors
· Clean water should be measured by results, not by headlines touting forced billions of dollars of investments, penalties and fines
· Recognition that cities are directly addressing the nexus of human settlements and large-scale natural phenomenon that need long-term planning, and EPA resources should be redirected to build watershed planning capacity at the state level
