Bill seeks to halt some EPA rules

BOISE — State legislation to reject some EPA regulations was unanimously introduced in the House State Affairs Committee Thursday after Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest Lake, expressed uneasiness about it.

The measure — which contains an emergency clause — would have Idaho designate as “null and void” federal Environmental Protection Agency rules deemed unconstitutional by the state.

“I hope that we don’t slow the process of finding resolution by going back into the whole nullification discussion,” Anderson said.  

Anderson said Idaho has already “codified the Clean Air Act,” and is in the process of doing the same with the Clean Water Act “through primacy.” He urged the bill’s sponsor — Rep. Paul E. Shepherd, R-Riggins — to be prepared at a potential full committee hearing to address those issues.    

“So, we would be nullifying state law at the same time as federal law, or the federal EPA rule,” as a result of the legislation, Anderson said. “So, you might want to be prepared for that discussion.”

“We (the state) have taken on those responsibilities already ... and you’re asking for us now to eliminate that,” Anderson said.

“It’s not against regulations that are legal, that are passed by representatives of the people,” Shepherd said. “But it is against the ones that are coming down through bureaucracies.”

Suction dredge miners in Idaho have had problems recently negotiating the EPA regulations, Shepherd said.

“They say if you pick up sand with their suction dredge and their dredge is a little platform about so big — sucks it up, runs it back across and now that’s pollution,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd said the nascent Idaho House bill was modeled after state legislation in Oklahoma.

House State Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, gave a thumbs-up to continued talk about the issue.

“Agriculture is now facing a lot of things having to do with the Clean Air Act that can’t even begin to be complied with,” Loertscher said. “So, I can understand perfectly well why he’s (Shepherd) bringing this. It is worthy of discussion.”

Anderson recommended that the federal government review agency rules, just as Idaho does.

 “And, maybe that’s the pressure that we put on our federal partners and have them go through the process that we go through,” Anderson said.

“And, that is the root of the problem,” Loertscher responded. “That Congress doesn’t use the ability to review those (rules).”