"Attorneys general in 21 states are backing an attempt to derail the Obama administration’s Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan, fearing that the government will use that authority to regulate wastewater in other watersheds, including the Mississippi River Basin."

"State attorneys general, most of them Republicans, from as far as Alaska and Montana joined the American Farm Bureau Federation in its fight to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from carrying out its plan to clean up the nation’s largest estuary. Impaired waters have led to fish-killing dead zones and other marine life die-offs for decades.

'If this [cleanup] is left to stand,' they argued in their joint amicus brief filed this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, 'other watersheds, including the Mississippi River Basin, could be next.'"

Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post February 5, 2014. [2]