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WATER QUALITY Tullock Rule Overturned The U.S. Corps of Engineers lacks authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate dredging within a wetland when a small amount material deposited in the wetland is an incidental consequence the dredging operation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in June. The Corps had overstepped its bounds, the Court held, when it promulgated the so-called "Tulloch" Rule in 1993 that required developers, counties and flood control districts to obtain a permit for inadvertent spills of dredged material into a wetlands. The Rule had required permits when a county was dredging, for example, a drainage ditch and accidentally dumped some of the debris into an adjacent area classified as wetlands. Such spillage is common, and gave the Corps authority to regulate county ditch-clearing activities that were not intended to be covered by the wetlands section of the Clean Water Act. Some county and regional flood control agencies, in particular, have had to wait years before receiving a Section 404 permit to dredge flood control channels. It is unclear whether the decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court. Clean Water Action Plan Appropriations committees in the House and Senate have failed to fund key components of the Administration's Clean Water Action Plan that are to be implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Administration requests for significant funding increases in USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQUIP) program, which offers direct technical and financial assistance to farmers who agree to improve their environmental practices, were turned down by both Senate and House committees. The president had asked for a $100 million increase for EQUIP, but the Senate committee failed to approve any additional funds, while the House committee recommended that the program be cut by $26 million. EPA argued that the lack of new funds for EQUIP and related USDA programs will make it more difficult to make the Clean Water Action Plan work because the EQUIP program would have provided farmers with assistance to reduce pollution from agricultural runoff - a major source of water pollution. Water Quality Standards Last month EPA finalized an initial proposal to begin a full-scale review of the water quality standards program which most states administer. The "advanced notice of proposed rulemaking" was published in the Federal Register on July 7. A copy is available on EPA website: (www epa eov/OST/Rules/anprm.html). 5