The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is at odds with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality over the way it assesses impaired and polluted waterways in the state

4/17/16
Unit 4: Institutions of National Government Pt.3 The Bureaucracy
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/6988bb227c7a4087b76624b075028060/AR--Polluted-Waterways-Arkansas


The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality recently sent it's list of "Impaired Water bodies" for this year to the EPA for oversight. The EPA has had problems with Arkansas over the past years due to their assessments of pouted water bodies. The EPA hasn't passed one of Arkansas's lists since 2008 as their assessments haven't been up to EPA standards. The ADEQ changed their limits for water-body assessments in 2014 which increased the amount of minerals percentages in a certain water body to be above the standard from 10 to 20 percent. The EPA, as government agency, must uphold the Clean Water Act of which this new change from the ADEQ is violating. The EPA asked for scientific proof on why this change should be allowed, showing how this difference will make a difference. If the EPA does pass the ADEQ's list it will most likely be subjected to a large amount of testing.

The EPA is large part of the United State's massive Federal bureaucracy. It has to exercise authority by enforcing law such as the Clean Water Act in this article as an independent regulatory agency. In this case it is enforcing federal laws and making the environmental departs of Arkansas take take data of its bodies of water. It uses Arkansas as proxy government to take all of this data then decides if the data is taken to the specifics of the federal government. The EPA has to administer all of the governments laws pertaining to its feild in addition to it's discretionary authority which is what is happening in the article. The EPA is using its discretionary authority to decide whether the ADEQ's list is sufficient enough.