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New TMDL Proposal On May 15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a proposal to meet Clean Water Act water quality goals through a "pollution-credit" trading system modeled after the one now in place to control air quality. Applicable to industrial, municipal, and agricultural (including forestry-related) water impacts, the proposal entails the agency's setting Total Maximum Daily Loads for all relevant waterways and then assigning quotas to "polluters." Enterprises that use less than their quota would then be able to sell a "credit" to another "polluter" in the same watershed. EPA argues that this market-based system contains automatic incentives, not only to construct mitigating works but to develop means and technologies for all entities, large and small, to cooperate in reducing the total load. Unless challenged by litigation or substantially altered during the public comment period, the rule should be in effect by the end of June. Return to Public Policy Archive Forest Resources Association
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