The Environmental Protection Agency released a new $491 million action plan with details for restoring and protecting the Chesapeake Bay in fiscal 2011.
With detailed actions designed to be implemented and completed within the next 12 months, the plan could meet several of President Obama’s goals from his 2009 executive order to save the Bay.
Yet the EPA’s plan has already hit a speed bump thanks to Congress, which declined to vote on a budget for the new fiscal year until after the November elections.
The plans were designed based on the president’s proposed budget. Fiscal 2011 begins Friday or the federal government.
Items scheduled for completion within the year, some as early as October or November, may now be delayed.
The EPA’s plans are based on Obama’s mission to use the federal government to initiate change through state and local governments. Just last week, the EPA flexed its muscles when it released scathing reports on individual states’ own pollution reduction plans. While Maryland and the District of Columbia were praised for their efforts, the EPA was critical of Virginia’s loose environmental guidelines.
