Cuccinelli Defeats EPA Over Accotink Creek
Ken Cuccinelli, a staunch state’s rights advocate, and God willing, the next governor of Virginia, defeated the Environmental Protection Agency in a lawsuit dealing with creek water runoff of Accotink Creek in Fairfax County VA. The EPA tried to force Fairfax County to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to contain runoff water because that water was a pollutant, and therefore under the EPA’s purview. Thankfully the courts told the EPA to pound sand.
From BigGovt here:
On Thursday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli scored a major victory against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) attempts to treat water as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act. Mr. Cuccinelli’s efforts will save Virginia taxpayers $300 million.
The legal battle began when the EPA claimed that stormwater flowing into the Accotink Creek in Fairfax County should be regulated as a pollutant. U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady said the EPA’s regulatory actions overstepped the agency’s authority. “Stormwater runoff is not a pollutant,” said Judge O’Grady, “so EPA is not authorized to regulate it.”
Prior to the ruling, Mr. Cuccinelli, a Republican running for Virginia governor, said if the EPA prevailed, it would bring “economic development to a screeching halt” and would “be one more blow to liberty, as the federal government continues to accumulate more and more power at the expense of our state and local governments.”
The EPA will likely create new rules granting themselves the power to regulate all water eventually unless they are stopped. Can we cut funding to this wasteful, bullying department of bureaucrats?
