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S. 1500, Sensible Environmental Protection Act of 2015 (CBO Report for Congress)

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Congress 114th
Requested By Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Date Sent Aug. 20, 2015
Description:

S. 1500 would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and states authorized to issue permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) from requiring a permit for some discharges of pesticides. Specifically, public and private entities would no longer need to obtain an NPDES permit for certain discharges of pesticides if their use is authorized under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, or in cases where the discharge is regulated as a stormwater, municipal, or industrial discharge under the Clean Water Act. The bill also would require EPA to submit a report to the Congress on the status of water quality protection and improvement.

Based on information from EPA about the cost of preparing the report, CBO estimates that implementing this legislation would not have a significant cost. Any administrative savings to EPA that might result from issuing fewer permits would be negligible because EPA has delegated the authority to issue most NPDES permits to states.

Pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply to S. 1500 because enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or revenues.

S. 1500 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.

On March 25, 2015, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 897, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act of 2015, as ordered reported by the House Committee on Agriculture on March 19, 2015. S. 1500 and H.R. 897 are similar; and the estimated budgetary effects are the same.

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