On July 6, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its
ruling in the case of American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA
(No. 13-4079). The ruling, which affirmed an earlier district
decision upholding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
(EPA's) Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), was a
complete victory for EPA. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL was developed
over the course of a decade through negotiations, sometimes tense,
between the Chesapeake Bay watershed states (and Washington, D.C.)
and EPA. The American Farm Bureau Federation challenged the TMDL
shortly after it was adopted in 2010. Its suit claimed, among other
things, that EPA's setting of the TMDL exceeded EPA's
authority by allocating waste loads, inserting timelines for
compliance, and requiring that states provide "reasonable
assurances" that they could meet the goals of their watershed
implementation plans, which were a key part of meeting the TMDL
goals.
