Environmental Week in Preview – Week of December 30th, 2013
No public hearings this week.
January 4, 2014: Comments due on EPA’s proposed rulemaking on regulatory clarifications relating to water quality standards. The proposed rulemaking includes revisions to how the EPA administrator determines that a new or revised water quality standard is necessary, designated uses, requirements of triennial reviews, implementation of antidegradation, variances and compliance schedules. Of particular interest are the proposed revisions to the use of variances to allow for environmental progress toward achieving the goals of the Clean Water Act.
Update on recent legislation:
2013 Wisconsin Act 74 essentially freezes local regulation relating to land development, as applied to a specific project, at the time that the person proposing the project first applies for a local approval for a project. Under the new act, if a person has submitted an application for a permit or authorization for building, zoning, driveway, stormwater, or other activity related to land development, the political subdivision must approve, deny or conditionally approve the application based upon the regulations, ordinances, rules or other properly adopted regulations in effect at the time the application for an approval is submitted to the political subdivision. In addition, if a project requirements more than one approval or approvals from more than one political subdivision, the existing requirements applicable in each political subdivision at the time of filing the application for the first approval required for the project area applicable to all subsequent approvals required for the project. A local government may establish an expiration date for approvals. The law became effective on December 14, 2013.
