A spending bill to be debated in Congress this week includes a provision to allow sales of a gasoline blend that includes up to 15% ethanol nationwide throughout the year. (Getty Images stock photo)

A spending bill U.S. House appropriators released Tuesday evening to keep the government open into next spring includes a provision to allow sales of a gasoline blend that includes up to 15% ethanol nationwide throughout the year.

After years of prohibiting the blend, known as E15, from being sold at gas stations during the summer months, the Environmental Protection Agency this year allowed year-round sales in eight Midwestern states. The provision in the stopgap funding bill would allow E15 sales in all states throughout the year.

The provision is a major win for corn producers and their allies in Congress from both parties. Supporters of ethanol, which is derived from corn, say it boosts U.S. production and lowers gas prices.

Sen. Deb Fischer, a Nebraska Republican who sponsored a bill to make the blend available all year, said the move was part of the GOP agenda to “unleash American energy.”

“My bill puts an end to years of patchwork regulations and uncertainty — year-round, nationwide E15 will now be a reality,” Fischer said. “This legislation also delivers on the mandate we received in November to unleash American energy. Not only will my bill lower gas prices and give consumers more choices, but it will also create new opportunity for American producers, who are especially hurting right now from lower prices.”

House Energy and Commerce ranking Democrat Frank Pallone of New Jersey applauded inclusion of the measure, saying it would help reduce gas prices and bolster U.S. energy production.

“By allowing for a higher blend of ethanol in our gasoline, Americans can rely more on homegrown biofuels that save drivers money at the pump and help insulate Americans from dramatic global price fluctuations,” Pallone said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., one of a handful of farm-state House Republicans pushing for the E15 provision, said in a statement, “Year around E-15 is the most important policy we can embrace for Midwestern farmers and ranchers. I was glad to advocate for this on the Agriculture Committee and to our Speaker, and glad to see it embraced. I also know our entire Nebraska delegation was pulling for this. It is a team win.”

At a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing last year, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska promoted E15 availability as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions and lower prices.

The EPA issued a waiver in May 2022 to allow the blend to be available nationwide throughout the year, as President Joe Biden’s administration sought to tame gas prices.

The stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, would keep the government funded at current levels through mid-March. It includes a few additional provisions, including funding to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland.

The House and Senate are expected to pass the catch-all measure before members depart for their holiday break on Friday. Biden is expected to sign the bill.

Nebraska Examiner reporter Aaron Sanderford and D.C. Bureau senior reporter Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

A new report from Union of Concerned Scientists pushes for wetland protections in a new Farm Bill. (Photo courtesy of USDA)

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists found wetlands in the Upper Midwest region are “in peril” due to recent legal challenges and a lack of state-level regulation. The report looks to a new farm bill as a vessel to protect wetlands.

The report, authored by Stacy Woods, the research director for the Food & Environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said industrial agriculture has inflicted “devastating damage” on wetlands across the country and that Iowa has more than 640,000 acres of wetland.

These wetlands, along with those in states across the Upper Midwest region, act as “natural barriers” to flooding. The report found this flood protection equates to nearly $23 billion in annual residential flood protection. Iowa’s wetlands alone could mitigate $477 million worth of flood damage to residential areas.

These estimates in the report are extrapolated from a 2022 study that found one acre of wetland was the equivalent to $745 in benefits from prevented flood damage.

The report alleges the Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “stripped” Clean Water Act protections from wetlands that are not connected to federally recognized bodies of water.

The new interpretation of the law, combined with the “absence of state-level wetland protections” in Iowa and other Upper Midwestern states makes wetlands “particularly vulnerable” to pollution or drainage, the report found.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 2020, the Conservation Reserve Program had restored more than 3 million wetland acres across the country since the program started in 1985.  The same program has restored over 118,000 acres of wetland in Iowa and enrolled 66,000 acres as “buffer” in farmable wetlands, according to data collected by Environmental Working Group.

A hope for Farm Bill protections

The report looks at the Farm Bill as a place to implement wetland regulations to stop “large-scale commodity growers and corporate agribusiness interests” that “exploit wetlands for agricultural expansion.”

Farm bills in the past have established protections for wetlands, including the Conservation Reserve Program and the “swampbuster” provision that linked a landowner’s eligibility for USDA incentive programs to their preservation of wetlands.

An Iowa landowner recently sued the USDA over the provision and several groups including Iowa Environmental Council, Iowa Farmers Union, Dakota Rural Action and Food & Water Watch, sought to intervene in the lawsuit, which a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa approved Tuesday.

The lawsuit alleges swampbusters created an unconstitutional condition for a farmer to receive USDA benefits, while the now-approved intervenors say without the law, there would be little to no protections for wetlands from farmers seeking to expand their croplands.

In addition to swampbuster, the report details other Farm Bill provisions that have protected wetlands, including conservation and wetland easement programs and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, which “enhance(s) wetlands” by promoting soil and water conservation.

The report calls for the next Farm Bill, which Congress has been unable to agree on and pass for more than two sessions now, to “enhance” existing conservation programs and implement new incentives that “foster soil and water health.”

These suggestions include: increasing the Conservation Reserve Program acres to 45 million acres; increasing funding for the Conservation Stewardship Program from $1 billion to $4 billion annually; expanding funding to historically underserved, disadvantaged and new farmers, and to link the Federal Crop Insurance Program to a farmer’s participation in conservation practices.

According to the report, investments from these recommendations constitute “only a fraction of the significant annual value wetlands deliver.”

“Integrating these initiatives into the next food and Farm Bill will fortify USDA programs that safeguard wetlands from industrial agriculture, ensuring these vital ecosystems thrive and continue to mitigate flooding, purify water, and support our communities and our climate,” the report said.

Groups across the country and political parties, including Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, and Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin have urged Congress to reauthorize the Farm Bill, rather than extend the 2018 bill for a second time.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and X.

President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he would nominate former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican, as EPA administrator. In this photo, Zeldin speaks during his election night party on June 28, 2022 in Baldwin, New York, after winning the GOP primary for New York governor. He lost in the general election. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump Monday said he will nominate former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York to serve as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Zeldin, also a former GOP candidate for New York governor, said on social media that it would be an honor to be appointed to Trump’s Cabinet. The Senate, which Republicans will control next year, will have to confirm Zeldin’s nomination.

Zeldin does not necessarily come from an environmental background. He’s an attorney and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. While in Congress from 2015 to 2023, he served on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and on the House Financial Services Committee.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

In a statement, Trump said that Zeldin comes from a “strong legal background,” and “has been a true fighter for America First policies.”

Zeldin serves as a chair of America First Policy Institute, a right-wing think tank that is packed with former Trump officials.

“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”

During Zeldin’s run for New York governor in 2022, a man attacked him on stage, but was quickly apprehended and Zeldin was uninjured.  New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul won the race.

Workers remove a lead service line before it’s replaced by a brass one in Providence, R.I., in 2023. A new federal rule will require water systems across the country to replace roughly 9 million lead service lines to protect residents from potential poisoning. (Kevin G. Andrade | Rhode Island Current)

A new federal rule will require water utilities across the country to pull millions of lead drinking water pipes out of the ground and replace them, at a cost of billions of dollars.

States, cities and water utilities agree that the lead pipes need to go to ensure safe water for residents. But they say they may struggle to do so in the 10-year window required under the rule, and they fear some ratepayers will be hit with massive cost increases to pay for the work.

State officials are urging Congress to provide ongoing funding for the lead replacement effort. Local leaders say they’ll need lots of help to meet the deadline. And environmental advocates are calling on states to issue bonds or provide other financial support to water utilities.

“It took us close to 100 years to get all of these lead service lines in the ground, and the EPA is asking us to get them out in 10 years,” said Tom Dobbins, CEO of the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, an advocacy group for publicly owned water systems. “The [Biden] administration grossly underestimated the cost. Obviously, if the federal government doesn’t provide the funding for this, the ratepayers will have to pay for this. That exacerbates certain communities’ affordability issues.”

The new rule, issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in October, requires cities and water utilities to replace all lead service lines — the pipes that run from water mains to private residences under lawns and sidewalks. Because the lines extend under private property, some water system operators say the rule has created confusion over whether utilities or homeowners will be responsible for the replacement costs.

The EPA estimates that more than 9 million service lines are made of lead, a neurotoxin that can cause nervous system damage, learning disabilities and other health problems, especially in children. If lead pipes corrode, as in the infamous case of Flint, Michigan, they can poison drinking water.

While no amount of lead exposure is safe, the federal rule now requires utilities to notify the public and improve corrosion treatment if lead in their water exceeds 10 parts per billion. Some homes in Syracuse, New York, recently tested at 70 parts per billion.

“This is a significant public health advance,” said Erik Olson, who leads a drinking water protection campaign with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental nonprofit. “We’ve known for decades that lead service lines are dangerous, and, unfortunately, a lot of utilities just kept putting it on the back burner.”

Under the rule, water systems will have until 2027 to draft a plan for replacing their lead lines, after which they will have 10 years to complete the work.

Olson said President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to roll back many environmental regulations, would have a difficult time undoing the lead rule. A provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act prevents “backsliding” for federal protections, he said, and efforts to overturn the rule through Congress could prove deeply unpopular.

Money worries

The federal mandate comes after some states, including Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey, already issued their own lead replacement requirements and directed funding to their hardest-hit communities.

“It’s a challenging goal, but I think we’ve shown it’s achievable,” said Eric Oswald, director of the Drinking Water and Environmental Health Division in the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. “I’m trying to make Michigan the first state to remove all lead service lines.”

The federal rule will accelerate Michigan’s timeline, as state regulations gave utilities a 20-year replacement window. But the initial state requirement has given water systems there a head start. Michigan has somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 service lines, of which it’s replaced about 50,000 so far. Oswald acknowledged that the work will be expensive.

In New Jersey, water utilities have replaced more than 25,000 service lines since a state lead law was passed in 2021 (that figure does not include a previous effort that replaced 23,000 pipes in Newark). But the state still has more than 120,000 lead service lines, which it said will cost at least $1.8 billion to replace.

“There’s nothing yet that has made me think that it’s not achievable, but right now the focus has been on getting a good inventory,” said Trish Ingelido, director of water supply and geoscience at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. “We’ll have a better sense in the next two years what the replacement rate is looking like.”

The EPA estimates that the cost of replacing lead pipes nationwide will be about $45 billion. A separate analysis by the consulting firm Safe Water Engineering, funded by the Natural Resources Defense Council, arrived at a similar figure. But the American Water Works Association, a coalition of water system operators, puts the cost at closer to $90 billion.

“This is important on the public health side, but it’s a challenge for local governments,” said Carolyn Berndt, legislative director for sustainability at the National League of Cities, which advocates for municipal governments. “We do see this raising concerns about affordability.”

While local governments worry about expenses, the EPA says that the public health costs of lead poisoning are far greater. A federal analysis estimates that the rule, on an annual basis, will prevent 1,500 cases of premature death from heart disease and protect 900,000 infants from having low birthweight. The agency says the savings from avoiding the poisoning of residents will be 13 times greater than the cost of replacing the pipes.

The EPA contends that replacement costs will be affordable. It estimates that household-level costs associated with the rule will range from 10 cents to $10 a month. The agency pointed to the success of states such as Michigan and New Jersey, which have already replaced tens of thousands of pipes, as evidence that the 10-year timeline is achievable. Federal officials argue that the market will correct for any shortages of labor and material that some states fear will slow the work.

The feds have provided $15 billion for lead service line replacement through the 2021 infrastructure law passed by Congress, plus another $11.7 billion in state-administered drinking water funds that can be used for new lines. Some communities have used those federal grants and loans, along with pandemic relief funds, to make significant progress on their lead problem.

So far, the EPA says it has distributed $9 billion of the money targeted at service line replacements, enough to change out up to 1.7 million pipes. But many water systems are still working to inventory their lead pipes, leaving them little time to compete for the federal funding that expires in 2026.

“[Federal investments] provided significant new funding for this effort, but it’s absolutely not nearly enough for the successful implementation of the rule,” said Ben Grumbles, executive director of the Environmental Council of the States, a nonprofit association of environmental agency leaders.

Grumbles noted that state agencies also are facing significant expenses from new federal rules to limit exposure to PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” in drinking water (lead, a naturally occurring metal, is not among the man-made PFAS chemicals).

Cities struggle

At the local level, leaders are scrounging for funding as best they can.

“We’re looking at federal money, we’re looking at bonds, we’re looking at different loans and grants,” said Randy Conner, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Water Management. “We’re making sure we turn over all the couch cushions to find every quarter we can possibly find to put towards this effort.”

Chicago has an estimated 400,000 lead pipes, more than any other U.S. city. Because of the sheer scale of the problem, the EPA gave Chicago an extended deadline of 20 years to replace its lines. Even so, that would require pulling out 19,000 lines a year, well more than the city’s current pace of 8,000. That work will cost about $780 million annually, according to city officials.

Conner said the city is hoping for more federal and state support to avoid placing a heavy burden on ratepayers.

Meanwhile, state and local leaders say Congress is interfering with a key source of money for lead line replacement. Two loan programs, funded by the federal government but administered by states, provide crucial financing for water infrastructure work. State agency leaders deploy the funding based on detailed assessments of community needs.

But in recent years, members of Congress have bypassed states’ funding strategies to earmark money for projects in their districts. State agencies say they’re receiving less than half of the pool of money after Congress assigns its favored projects. That has left them less able to help the neediest communities. And many of the congressionally designated projects are lagging because they haven’t gone through the rigorous preparation work required by states.

“By diverting so much funding away from the successful [loan programs], disadvantaged communities are less likely to get funding,” said Grumbles, who oversees the coalition of state agencies.

Grumbles and others argue that any earmarks from Congress should only be in addition to the baseline loan program funding.

Other challenges

Costs aren’t the only obstacle water systems are facing. Some are concerned that the rush to replace millions of pipes nationwide will strain the workforce and supply chain capacity.

“The limiting factor is going to be the availability of contractors and professionals and materials to do the actual work,” said Robert Boos, executive director of the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority. “That’s going to be a national issue, when you’ve got tens of thousands of communities trying to do this work.”

Pennsylvania has boosted clean water funding in its state budget, and it’s trying to tackle the workforce issue as well. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro signed an executive order in 2023 to create a workforce training program for infrastructure jobs, including lead pipe replacement.

Olson, the environmental advocate, pointed to Newark, New Jersey, which partnered with a labor union to train local residents. The city replaced all of its 23,000 lead service lines in just over two years.

“Creative thinking and political will are really what’s needed,” he said. “This is definitely doable.”

Another potential problem is the fact that service lines lie under private property, meaning utilities need cooperation from homeowners to conduct the work. In some cases, they’ve run into opposition from residents or struggled to reach absentee landlords.

“People just don’t trust government; they don’t think that anything is free,” said Conner, the Chicago official. “We want them to understand that we’re not coming into their house to give citations.”

Environmental advocates also note that service lines’ placement on private property has created confusion over who must pay to replace them. The federal rule does not explicitly make water utilities responsible.

“When the city goes to a household and says you have to pay a couple thousand dollars to replace your portion of the lead service line, it may work for higher-income people,” Olson said. “But the studies are showing that lower-income homeowners and landlords will not pay for it. It’s a real exacerbation of environmental injustices.”

He pointed to Michigan, which adopted a rule specifying that water systems are responsible for the costs of replacing lines. He also noted that some cities have passed ordinances allowing residents of a home to authorize pipe replacement if a landlord can’t be reached.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Environmental advocates are concerned about the second Trump administration's effect on Wisconsin water quality. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump frequently talked about slashing environmental regulations on industry, freeing them up to do as they wish because climate change is a “hoax.” 

With about 70 days until the second Trump administration takes office, environmental advocacy groups in Wisconsin are preparing for how they’ll respond to the actions of the Trump-led Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Agriculture and the Interior as they try to protect the state’s air, water and natural resources. 

Howard Learner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, says the first Trump term had negative effects on the environment, but the difference this time around is that Wisconsin and its midwestern neighbors have Democratic governors, attorneys general and liberal majorities on their state Supreme Courts.

“For the next few years in Wisconsin, there’s a Democratic governor, a Democratic-appointed Wisconsin [Department of Natural Resources] (DNR), a Democratic attorney general and a Democratic majority Supreme Court,” Learner says. “Where previously a number of DNR issues got tied up by the Republican majority, the current Supreme Court has given DNR more latitude to be protective of the environment. So there’s an opportunity for the states to be stepping up if the federal government is pulling back, and Wisconsin should seize that opportunity.” 

Many environmental advocates are also still in “wait-and-see” mode, wondering which party will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives and which members of Congress will control the body’s committees. 

Sara Walling, Clean Wisconsin’s water and agriculture program director, points to areas where there’s broad bipartisan consensus and there isn’t need for concern — largely the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a multi-agency collaboration to protect the largest freshwater lakes in the world. 

“Over the years, since its initial authorization, and then its reauthorization several times now, including during the Trump administration, both parties have really supported Great Lakes Restoration funding and those programs, so we fully expect that it will be intact and continue to be authorized moving forward,” Walling says. 

But she adds there are questions about the level of funding for projects such as cleanup efforts in the Milwaukee River estuary. She also says it’s unlikely progress will continue for starting a similar large-scale restoration project with the Mississippi River. 

Walling says she’s concerned about  the Trump-led EPA’s reliance on scientific research conducted by industries the agency regulates. 

“Generally speaking, the Trump administration in the past, and I don’t see any of this changing going forward, does not tend to rely on science when making a lot of its decisions at the EPA level,” she says.

Walling expects the incoming president’s administration to reject Biden administration EPA provisions “that have really been very heavily supported by really expansive scientific studies,” she says. “There’s a lot of initiatives that the EPA has been undertaking that are really a science-driven exploration of any environmental issue, to use that science as the backing for potentially new regulations.” 

Walling says that the pesticide and agricultural industries are areas where Republicans have complained about what the scientific research has found, and the Trump-led EPA and USDA may swing the pendulum back toward using research conducted by the companies themselves that ignores potential harms to the environment. 

Gussie Lord, the managing attorney of the tribal partnerships program at Earthjustice, says that for Wisconsin’s Native American tribes, the environmental concerns of the Trump administration focus largely on the construction of the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin and the delisting of the gray wolf, once again allowing the animal to be hunted in the state. 

“We don’t know for sure what’s going to happen or what their priorities are going to be, but we can look at the previous Trump administration and the things that have been said by his advisors and former advisors, and we can surmise that there’s going to be a focus toward more extractive industry practices, including mining, oil and gas,” Lord says. 

Lord says protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, wetland protections under the Clean Water Act and subsidies for green energy are all at risk of being reduced. He also considers it likely that the new administration will approve federal permits for Line 5.

On Friday, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents much of northern Wisconsin, wrote in his weekly email newsletter about “tapping into America’s clean oil and gas resources” and that removing the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list is a priority under the new administration

“I am committed to passing my legislation that will return gray wolf management back to the states, allowing us to protect our communities and rural livelihoods,” he wrote. 

In the previous Congress, Tiffany was a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and chairman of the subcommittee on federal lands. During his last term, he allied with right-wing anti-conservation group American Stewards of Liberty to oppose conservation projects in northern Wisconsin. 

American Stewards of Liberty (ASL) played a role in developing Project 2025, the policy plan written for the Trump administration. The president-elect said during the campaign the document wasn’t going to reflect his administration, but Trump allies have touted it as a playbook for his term in the days after his victory. 

Charlie Carlin, director of strategic initiatives at Gathering Waters, which focuses on land conservation in Wisconsin, says ASL’s ideology becoming a main aim of the federal government’s environmental policy is worrying. 

“If we take seriously that Project 2025 is essentially a guiding document for what the next Trump administration looks like, then I think we need to be really concerned about the future of permanent land conservation, kind of across the board,” Carlin says. That extends to agricultural land and working forest land as well as natural and wildlife areas, he adds.

ASL and Tiffany have been outspoken in their support for extractive industries, and Carlin says he’s worried about the trade-off  the Trump administration appears likely to make. 

“I think it’s incredibly concerning — what’s the long term sustainability of both the landscape and the economy of northern Wisconsin if the levers of federal government are used to incentivize extraction [which] in northern Wisconsin is likely to be open pit mining,” Carlin says. 

“There’s potentially a major short term economic gain for the wealthiest — for the people who are the owners of those mining companies, or folks who invest in those companies.” he adds. “But then what suffers there is both water quality and forest land cover for the long term. So maybe you get 10 years or maybe a generation worth of revenue … extracted as you’re mining, and then you’re left with many generations of poison water or impaired water quality.” 

He adds that short-term gain could result in a long-term loss in more sustainable industries, diminishing property tax values for communities in the region.

“If you strip the timber off of the land in order to dig a big hole to extract minerals, then what you don’t have is the regular annual income that supports loggers and that supports the truckers and that supports the mills,  and also, that land base supports the outdoor recreation economy and the second-home economy that provides so much of the property tax base up north,” Carlin says. “And so what you’re talking about is this sort of short term blitz that is going to benefit a very few people at the consequence of the long term environmental and economic health of the entire region.”