EPA Bows to Cuccinelli on Accotink Stink

Accotink Creek. Photo credit: Connection Newspapers.

Chalk up another victory for Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli in his ongoing campaign against federal overreach. It looks like he has won his lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for attempting to regulate storm water flowing into Fairfax County’s Accotink Creek.

In January, federal judge Liam O’Grady accepted Cuccinelli’s argument that the EPA had surpassed its authority by trying to regulate storm water on the grounds that water (as opposed to the sediment it carried) was a pollutant. An EPA edict would have cut the flow of water into the creek by half at an estimated cost of $300 million to Virginia and Fairfax County taxpayers.

EPA officials informed Cuccinelli’s office that it would not appeal the case. Stated Cuccinelli in a press release:

This would also have been a dangerous precedent for Virginia, as the EPA could have demanded this solution in localities across the commonwealth at an enormous price tag to Virginia and its residents, with no proof that the EPA’s solution would work.

Bacon’s bottom line: Maybe this will stifle talk that Cuccinelli is a fruitcake whack job for resisting policies that would effectively convert the 50 states into administrative sub-units of the federal government. He hasn’t won every battle, but he’s got a pretty good batting average.

— JAB