Wally Taylor

1. H.R. 2354 - House Appropriations Bill for Energy and Water Development for FY 2012: The House began debating H.R. 2354 last week and is scheduled to continue debating later thisafternoon.  A final House vote on the bill is likely early this week.  As you recall, there is languagein this appropriations bill that would eliminate the administration's ability to finalize new clean waterguidance and undertake a rule-making in the future.      2. H.R. 2018 - The "So-Called" Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2011: This bill passed the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee on June 22, 2011.  The  House Rules Committee has a hearing on H.R. 2018 for tomorrow, July 12, 2011 at 3pm.  The full House is expected to vote on the bill later this week.  Essentially this bill would take the "federal" out of the federal Clean Water Act and overturn almost 40 years of Federal legislation by preventing EPA from protecting public health and water quality.       3. FY 2012 Interior-EPA Appropriations Bill + Dirty Water Riders: This bill passed an appropriations subcommittee on Thursday, July 7th.  The full House Appropriations Committee will be voting on the measure tomorrow, Tuesday, July 12th. We expect this bill to be come up on the House floor for a vote the week July 26th.  In addition to slashing EPA's budget by 18%, this Appropriations bill contains a number of dirty water riders that threaten to prohibit oversight of mountaintop removal mining, exempt stormwater runoff from logging roads and pesticide discharges into waterways from Clean Water Act permits, and prevent EPA's ability to update or implement regulation for coal ash, stormwater, and small streams threatened by mountaintop mining among others. 4. H.R. 2273: McKinley's Coal Ash Bill: Congressman David McKinley (R-WV) has introduced a dangerously weak bill for "regulating" coal ash disposal that would defy logic by allowing States to continue operating every leak-prone and high hazard toxic coal ash dump without requiring basic safeguards and virtually blocking EPA from stepping in to protect communities.  Passage of this bill would endanger the health and safety of thousands of communities, fail to stimulate coal ash recycling, and disrupt the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) public rulemaking process that has been underway for over two years and has attracted a record 455,000 comments. This bill is scheduled to be marked up this afternoon (July 11) before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.