From the News Service of Florida:
U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., took shots at the Environmental Protection Agency’s rules for water quality in Florida during remarks to a lobbyist convention in Panama City Beach. Southerland said the new standards’ impact on the economy had not been fully weighed and were not fair to the state. “This standard will certainly not create jobs,” Southerland said before pointing to the high unemployment rates nationwide and in Florida. “I think we need to proceed with caution when we start with pushed-down regulations, not just from the EPA, but also from the other government departments, that are going to have an adverse impact at a time when we can ill afford to lose jobs and we can ill afford to continue to put the skids on our economy.” Southerland also said the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was working toward its own standards before the EPA got involved and that the new rules weren’t fair because they singled out Florida. “The standard that applies to us does not apply to the other 49 states,” Southerland said.
The EPA has said the rules would eventually be extended to other states, and supporters of the federal standards have said the costs will be negligible.
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