Provisions by Sen. Blunt would corral ozone, water regulations

Provisions pushed into a proposed federal agency spending bill by U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt on Tuesday aim to limit several regulations and rules deemed as government overreach by opponents.

Among provisions and language successfully added by Blunt to a bill for fiscal 2016 spending by the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies were measures that would block the Environmental Protection agency from going through with several separate plans for rules on power plant emissions, water pollution and ground-level ozone pollution.

Blunt, a member of the U.S. Senate's Interior and Environment Subcommittee, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters the additions to the bill are using the funding mechanism to slow down implementation of regulations.

"That's a reasonable thing to do in a democracy for some period of time, and voters have a say on this every time they elect people to public office. I think you're going to see this Congress working really hard to find a way to suspend these excessive regulations until people have time to think about them," Blunt said.

One provision in the spending bill that could directly affect the future of economic development in Perry and Ste. Genevieve counties in Southeast Missouri would prevent the EPA from issuing new, lower standards for ground-level ozone until 85 percent of counties in the U.S. are compliant with the current ozone standard.

Readings at ground-level ozone monitors in rural areas of the counties eventually could lead to a "nonattainment status" for the counties if levels consistently exceed the allowable amount. The counties, according to members of a regional committee who meet quarterly in Perryville, Missouri, to discuss environment-related issues and regulations, are struggling to meet current standards and cannot meet the EPA's proposed lower standards. A lower standard, group members have said, will prove detrimental to economic development and industrial growth by subjecting businesses to strict permitting regulations if they seek to expand facilities or create new facilities.

The monitor at Perry County, located near Farrar, Missouri, recorded within the past week the first exceedance of the current allowable standard for the year, a report from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources showed.

Ground-level ozone, created from vehicle and industry pollution and naturally occurring gases mixing with heat and sunlight, is measured annually from April to October.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources, through its air pollution control program, recently released a 2015 monitoring network plan that covers details for the state's more than 20 ozone monitors. The EPA's proposed changes for lowered standards, according to the plan, are expected to be finalized later this year, and the changes also would add March to the monitoring season.

The additions by Blunt to the appropriations bill, if passed, also would let states avoid becoming subject to a federal plan for implementation of regulations for power plant emissions if they choose not to submit their own plans and, according to a news release, "prevents the EPA from implementing the new jurisdictional definition of 'Waters of the United States' under the Clean Water Act."

Blunt said votes by members of Congress on each federal agency proposed rule and regulation would not allow continuation of "a regulatory environment that has gotten too extreme."

There is an additional direction included in the bill for the EPA not to veto a Southeast Missouri flood-control project, known as the St. Johns Bayou and New Madrid Floodway project.

Environmental groups, along with Illinois residents who say the project will provide protection from flooding on the east side of the Mississippi River, are encouraging a veto of the long-halted and much-debated project led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The $165 million project would close a 1,500-foot gap in the Mississippi River levee system, add pumping stations in the New Madrid Floodway and St. John's Bayou and modify miles of ditches in the bayou basin.

The closing of the gap would protect areas of New Madrid, Mississippi and Scott counties from flooding and allow farming on lands that can't be planted, but opponents say closing the last natural river floodplain will harm wildlife by diminishing thousands of acres of wetlands.

eragan@semissourian.com

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