New Federal Order Ends 2009 Chesapeake Bay Directive and Targets Stormwater Fees

WASHINGTON — A new presidential order has revoked the 2009 executive order that set the federal government's role in Chesapeake Bay restoration and tells federal agencies to put their Bay money into projects that directly reduce nutrient and sediment runoff.

Executive Order 14428, signed Sept. 16 and published in the Federal Register on Sept. 21, revokes Executive Order 13508, the Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration order of May 12, 2009. The order's directives are addressed to federal agencies. It does not name any county or tributary, including Talbot's Choptank, Tred Avon and Miles rivers.

Under the order, the Secretaries of War, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Homeland Security and the EPA Administrator must assess the support their agencies give the Bay and focus money and staff on direct, on-the-ground projects in areas of highest need. Agencies that fund Bay work must redirect money away from activities that do not show measurable progress toward projects that directly reduce nutrient and sediment runoff. Strategies must document results such as reductions in sediment, phosphorus and nitrogen loads.

The order also directs the EPA to work with Maryland, the other Bay states and the District of Columbia to assess the costs residents pay through stormwater management fees, look for ways to improve Bay health without raising costs on residents, and take measures to encourage the repeal of those fees. The order calls the fees "rain taxes" and says nothing in the 2009 order required them.

The order cites Bay progress as its reason for the change. It says that as of 2025, the Bay watershed jurisdictions had met 100% of their sediment reduction goal, 90% of their phosphorus goal and 57% of their nitrogen goal. It also says the federal government remains a signatory to the 2025 revised Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.

The order is to be carried out consistent with applicable law and subject to available appropriations, and it does not change the authority granted by law to any federal agency.