U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, made the following statement regarding a court decision saying that the Environmental Protection Agency violated their regulatory requirements in implementing water treatment regulations in Iowa.

"Once again the courts have to intervene on the EPA's process failures," Vitter said. "In this example, some small water utilities could have faced significant penalties because of some regulatory sleight of hand by EPA bureaucrats."

On March 25, 2013 the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided that two letters sent by the EPA to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) effectively set forth new regulatory requirements with respect to water treatment processes at municipally owned sewer systems. According to the decision, the EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by implementing requirements without first proceeding through the notice and comment procedures for agency rulemaking.

Vitter recently applauded the District of Columbia Circuit when they found that EPA was projecting far too much production of cellulosic biofuel for 2012. In vacating EPA's 2012 projection of cellulosic biofuel production, the Court found that the Renewable Fuels Standard program, as amended in 2007, would need to be based on actual production versus a prediction. The Court found EPA's estimations of growth in the cellulosic biofuel industry did not align with how the Renewable Fuels Standard law is written.

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