DENNIS – The Association to Preserve Cape Cod has provided testimony to the Massachusetts Legislature opposing a proposed bill regarding the Environmental Protection Agency.
The legislation would transfer control of a water pollution regulation from the federal EPA to the Commonwealth.
“While we’re generally supportive of the activities of the State Department of Environmental protection, I think that they do a very good job, we have concerns about this legislation because we don’t believe that it adequately funds the department to do the work,” said APCC Executive Director Andrew Gottlieb
APCC argues that recent budget cuts have left the state’s Department of Environmental Protection struggling to manage their current responsibilities and that they lack the capacity to properly administer an additional pollution control program.
Gottlieb says that his agency’s opposition to the change is far from an endorsement of how the federal EPA is currently handling the regulation.
“You would be taking what is not a good situation currently under the federal government,” he said, “and transferring it to the State but not really giving the agency the sufficient resources to do the program well.”
In their testimony, the APCC told state legislators that ineffective oversight of the regulations could lead to negative impacts to the commonwealth’s water quality, specifically on Cape Cod.
By DAVID BEATTY, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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