EPA Loosens Water Quality Trading Policy To Spur Growth
Partner Brooks Smith was quoted in a Law360 article titled, “EPA Loosens Water Quality Trading Policy To Spur Growth.” The article discusses the EPA’s recent changes, designed to simplify its 15-year-old water quality credit trading policy and intended to make it easier for governments to create programs that allow regulated parties such as wastewater utilities and power plants to generate tradable credits partnering with farmers and other nonregulated parties when they reduce what they discharge into water. With these changes, local trading programs can set baseline pollution levels — the level at which a credit can be generated. Smith said that the baseline guidance is intended to show local governments that the current conditions of their watershed is a perfectly acceptable place to set a marker for improvements, noting, “You start with what you have, and if you can do better than that, it should generate a credit that should be creditable for watershed improvement and it should be creditable for compliance purposes.”