EPA boss plays Santa for Florida developers
By Craig Pittman
Florida Phoenix
Dec. 24, 2020
Excerpt
So why haven’t other states jumped on this? I checked with a couple of Clean Water Act experts, University of Buffalo School of Law professor Kim Diana Connolly and Stetson University College of Law professor Royal Gardner, who once served as the Army’s top wetlands lawyer. Both told me the reason was simple: Money — rather, the lack of it.
No matter who’s in charge, issuing wetland permits is complicated and messy work, Connolly said. The cost of doing it right is not cheap. But federal law offers the states no help.
“When a state assumes the [wetlands] program, it doesn’t get any dedicated money from the federal government,” Gardner said. That means taking on a ton of new work from the feds without getting a dime from the feds to pay for it.
This article was originally published on the Florida Phoenix website on Dec. 24, 2020, with the headline, “EPA boss plays Santa for Florida developers.”
Post date: Dec. 24, 2020
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