Congressman's attempts to lower clean water protections aid donors

By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Using the subcommittee he chairs as leverage, U.S. Rep. Doug Ose personally lobbied the Environmental Protection Agency to help developers and businesses that supported his campaigns overcome federal Clean Water Act regulations.

For nearly two years, Ose, a Republican from Sacramento, has sought to lower federal clean water protections for five Northern California developers and businesses that together contributed more than $31,000 to his campaigns, records show.

The effort has national implications as the Bush administration debates the limits of federal jurisdiction over wetlands and isolated waterways.

Frustrated by delays in one case, Ose sought to disqualify the chief of the regional EPA's wetlands regulatory office in December 2001 because of the employee's association with a nonprofit neighborhood conservation group. The EPA's regional administrator determined there was no conflict of interest, but Ose remained dissatisfied although the employee did not again participate in the process.

During a telephone interview with The Associated Press Wednesday, Ose declined to comment publicly about his activities on behalf of specific projects, or on any connection with campaign contributions. Instead, he said, ``we fight for the interests of our constituents and employers'' in areas as diverse as veterans benefits, senior housing, and immigration policy. ``We've done thousands of things for people.''

But attorney Kelly Smith, who represents a group that opposes one of the developments Ose championed, said Ose ``was bringing political pressure to bear.'' In a letter to Ose and Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein last year, he accused Ose of attempting to ``stifle environmental review'' by the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Ose said it was proper for his congressional subcommittee and its staff to intervene repeatedly on behalf of the California contributors, because, ``How those rules relate to those projects is a national issue. It has to do with equal protection across the country.''

Ose convened his Government Reform Subcommittee in September to hear how federal protections for small streams and wetlands might be affected by a January 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that developers and agriculture interests suggest should limit the government's jurisdiction only to navigable waterways.

Environmental groups accuse the Bush administration of broadly interpreting the court ruling as a pretext to limit Clean Water Act protections on vernal pools and intermittent streams such as those affected by the projects Ose has championed.

The administration's January decision could result in the loss of federal protection for up to 20 million acres of the nation's remaining 100 million acres of swamps and bogs. The administration also began re-evaluating Clean Water Act protections for isolated, intrastate, nonnavigable wetlands.

Ose hailed the decision, saying the court's ruling means it should be left to states to regulate isolated waters though only a few states have done so. An estimated 90 percent of California wetlands and vernal pools already have been destroyed, while more than half are gone nationwide.

A month later, Ose described the new interpretation as ``a welcome first step'' while he asked Congress' nonpartisan General Accounting Office to study the federal government's jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.

Ose was preparing to run for the U.S. Senate at the time. However, citing family concerns, Ose abruptly ruled out a bid for the Senate seat held by Democrat Barbara Boxer last month, and said he will leave Congress when his term ends next year.

Environmental groups have been fiercely protective of Boxer and her liberal environmental record. The Sierra Club used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain nearly 200 pages worth of correspondence, notes from meetings and phone calls, internal e-mails and other documents and make them available to the AP.

Ed Hopkins, who heads organization's environmental quality program, sought the information in January after Ose and his subcommittee became publicly active on the topic.

``I don't think it's any big surprise that the Sierra Club is not going to share Doug's views on property rights,'' said Jonathan Tolman, a former subcommittee aide who now works for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. ``We were the EPA's oversight committee; that was our job. Doug was the chairman; that was his job.''

Nor is it surprising that Ose, a developer, would go to bat for other developers frustrated with environmental constraints or delays, Tolman said, adding that he acted at Ose's direction, and knew of no connection to campaign contributions.

While EPA officials said it was common for members of Congress to help constituents, Ose was so insistent that the officials, in private e-mails, worried about starting ``a bonfire'' in Ose's office with one adverse decision, and referred to scrambling to answer Ose's questions on three other developments as a ``fire drill.''

Ose invited four witnesses to testify against the government's expansive jurisdiction over nonnavigable wetlands and waterways, but none that favor federal protections for those areas.

Two witnesses invited by minority Democrats testified that many isolated waterways that were the subject of the Supreme Court's ruling are often isolated because so much of the nation's wetlands already have been developed. The remnants still perform functions of national interest including storing and filtering water, and sheltering wildlife.

Ose criticized the Corps for using an ``elastic'' definition of navigable waterways to claim jurisdiction, including ``ditches, which are only infrequently wet.'' The Corps' and EPA's lack of a consistent policy ``has created confusion and chaos'' for those who want to develop protected areas as well as for states, he said.

Developers in the Central Valley have long been frustrated by the protected vernal pools, which fill with the winter rains and evaporate in the hot summers. Tolman said ``a puddle ... out in the middle of a field'' should not be considered connected to a federally regulated waterway.

Developers have long attempted to alter the Clean Water Act. Ose has millions invested in family development projects in the Sacramento area. Developers as a group were the second-largest contributors to his last campaign, giving him $60,708, while general contractors contributed another $17,400, federal campaign finance records show.

Ose said he never asked for a specific result, just an expedited decision when he repeatedly and personally lobbied regional EPA officials on five waterway cases.

``The congressman's been very good on behalf of a number of property owners ... on making the Corps and the EPA follow the law,'' said John Hodgson II, project manager for the Sunrise-Douglas community in Rancho Cordova. Developers there propose to build 6,359 new homes on 1,259 acres, despite concerns over wetlands and water for the community.

The ultimate decision on a small stream water pollution exemption involving another contributor, Genentech Inc., is expected to set a precedent for similar Western waterways. The company's wastewater flows through a Vacaville sewage treatment plant into Old Alamo Creek and eventually the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

It's an example, EPA officials said, of how ever-increasing congestion in the nation's most populous state means one city's wastewater eventually becomes a downstream city's drinking water.

On the Net:

http://reform.house.gov/reg/

http://www.epa.gov/region09/

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)