Cities Press EPA To Drop ‘Once In, Always In’ Policy From ‘Urban’ MS4 Rule

A coalition of Minnesota cities is pushing back on EPA’s proposals aimed at clarifying decades-old requirements for small municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) discharges in “urbanized areas,” claiming a “once in, always in” provision in the preamble to the original 1999 rulemaking exceeds the agency’s Clean Water Act (CWA) authority. “When this policy was first promulgated in the 1999 rule, it was an inappropriate and arbitrary exercise of EPA’s power to set significant regulatory policy that was done through...