Environmental Protection Agency December 27, 2019 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator's October 16, 2017 Directive Promoting Transparency and Public Participation in Consent Decrees and Settlement Agreements, notice is hereby given of three proposed settlement agreements to address petitions for review of EPA's final National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) general permits for discharges of stormwater from Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) in Massachusetts and New Hampshire under Clean Water Act (CWA). The proposed settlements represent the results of mediation supervised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Mediation Program between EPA and petitioners the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Massachusetts, Inc. (HBRAMA), the New Hampshire Home Builders Association (NHHBA), the Center for Regulatory Reasonableness (CRR), the Massachusetts Coalition for Water Resources Stewardship (MCWRS), the Town of Franklin, Massachusetts, (Franklin), the City of Lowell, Massachusetts (Lowell), the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), and the Charles River Watershed Association (CRWA). Two of the proposed settlement agreements include commitments for EPA to propose certain modifications to the 2016 Massachusetts Small MS4 General Permit and the 2017 New Hampshire Small MS4 General Permit, and then to take final action on each proposal. The third settlement agreement commits EPA to process an individual small MS4 permit application from the City of Lowell, Massachusetts.