A group of 39 bipartisan lawmakers have signed on to an amicus brief backing agriculture groups in their challenge of EPA’s Chesapeake Bay water quality goals, known as the total maximum daily load (TMDL).
The Associated Press reported that the filing in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia puts the lawmakers alongside 21 attorneys general who already oppose the cleanup, a case testing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority under the Clean Water Act.
Lawmakers “have a clear interest in ensuring that Congress’s supreme legislative and policy making role is not usurped by unelected executive branch agencies,” they wrote in the June 30 brief in American Farm Bureau Federation, et al., v. EPA. “If allowed to stand, the decision … would allow EPA to usurp the traditional state authority over economic development and land-use management decisions.”
Among those signed onto the brief are Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), as well as Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).
To read the Associated Press story on the subject, click here.
