Cuccinelli Defeats EPA's Attempt to Classify Water as Pollutant

On Thursday, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli scored a major victory against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) attempts to treat water as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act.  Mr. Cuccinelli’s efforts will save Virginia taxpayers $300 million.  

The legal battle began when the EPA claimed that stormwater flowing into the Accotink Creek in Fairfax County should be regulated as a pollutant.  U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady said the EPA’s regulatory actions overstepped the agency’s authority.  “Stormwater runoff is not a pollutant,” said Judge O’Grady, “so EPA is not authorized to regulate it.”

In an email to Breitbart News, Mr. Cuccinelli explained:

In Virginia, they recently tried to force taxpayers to spend $300 million on a project to change how much stormwater was running into a creek – something the EPA has no authority to demand.

So how did the EPA try to skirt the law? By treating WATER as a pollutant.

You can’t make this kind of thing up, but it’s exactly the kind of nonsense Washington is imposing on states day after day after day, and it has got to stop!

Prior to the ruling, Mr. Cuccinelli, a Republican running for Virginia governor, said if the EPA prevailed, it would bring “economic development to a screeching halt” and would “be one more blow to liberty, as the federal government continues to accumulate more and more power at the expense of our state and local governments.”

Mr. Cuccinelli is widely considered a rising conservative star and was among the first to lead the fight against Obamacare.  Liberal media dubbed him “Obamacare’s most formidable foe.” 

“I am a Constitutional conservative who believes that to get back to the principles of our nation’s founding,” says Mr. Cuccinelli.  “We have to draw a line in the sand against Washington’s continued interference in our states’ economies.”