AWWA JAW57679

After concluding in late 2001 that an exhaustive scientific review of the revised arsenic rule promulgated earlier that year by the outgoing Clinton Administration supported tightening the 60-year-old federal drinking water standard for arsenic from 50 to 10 ug/L, the Bush Administration is now trying to fend off a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the rule as well as of the 29-year-old Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) itself. In a January 21 brief filed with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, attorneys from both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) spelled out their case countering claims by Nebraska and several water systems that the SDWA in general and the arsenic rule in particular exceed the limits on federal powers over state activities established by Supreme Court interpretations of the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment and violate the First Amendment's freedom of speech protection. This article summarizes the arguments challenging and supporting the legality of the arsenic rule and the SDWA according to the constitutional provisions cited by Nebraska.