Va. Congressman Seeks To Block Bay Funding

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte is attempting to ban the use of federal dollars to implement the Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay restoration plan, accusing the agency of overreaching its authority.

The Virginia Republican said the states within the Chesapeake's vast watershed have "made steady progress" to reduce farm, urban and suburban runoff into the bay and that the EPA's stepped-up approach will burden states and localities with huge costs.

"They are trying to take control from the states the ability to manage these watershed improvement programs, which have historically and clearly been under the Clean Water Act for states to do," Goodlatte said in an interview on Tuesday.

His amendment to the government funding bill had not been acted on Wednesday, a spokeswoman said.

Goodlatte was an early critic of the EPA's so-called pollution diet for the bay, and is part of a GOP effort to strip the agency of some of its regulatory powers and funding.

An EPA spokesperson declined Wednesday to comment specifically on Goodlatte's effort. Environmentalists, however, took him to task, calling the EPA plan "the bay's best and last chance for restoration."

"How unfortunate that Congressman Goodlatte, who represents one of the states that would benefit most from a healthy Chesapeake Bay, is seeking to torpedo the bay restoration plan before its ink is scarcely dry," said William C. Baker, president of the

Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which advocates for bay protection and restoration.

The 64,000-square-mile water-pollution-control project is the largest ever undertaken in the United States.

The plan involves individual agreements with six states and the District of Columbia to sharply reduce the flow of pollutants and sediments that experts say have choked the bay and crippled it environmentally. The states and the District are part of the bay's watershed, which includes 17 million people.

The goals are to be achieved by 2025.

With the backing of President Barack Obama, the EPA is shepherding the restoration plan because of what it considers the lack of progress over the years by the individual states to protect or restore the bay.

Farm and urban runoff, air pollution and sewer overflows have left the 200-mile-long bay with "dead zones" -- areas where oxygen is sucked from the water by algae blooms that block sunlight from reaching underwater marine life.

The states within the bay's drainage basin are parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)