Late last week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order revoking a 2009 federal coordination directive that was issued under former President Barack Obama telling federal agencies how to organize themselves around Bay cleanup. It did not impose any requirements on local government, nor was it the legal basis for any stormwater fee.  

There are media reports that this new executive order somehow changed federal stormwater mandates and requires the repeal of stormwater fees. This is incorrect.  

The executive order does not change municipal permit obligations under the Clean Water Act and our state-issued MS4 permit, both of which predate the now-repealed directive and both of which remain in effect. The MS4 permit program comes from Clean Water Act section 402(p) and EPA’s Phase I rule (November 16, 1990) and Phase II rule (December 8, 1999), codified at 40 CFR Part 122. The Chesapeake Bay TMDL was established in December 2010 under Clean Water Act section 303(d), upheld by the Third Circuit in American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA, 792 F.3d 281 (2015), with cert denied in February 2016. The new order does not touch either of these rules 

The executive order also does not require municipalities to repeal stormwater fees levied under the Second Class Township Code or the Municipal Authorities Act. An executive order cannot override state law or repeal a local ordinance, and this one does not try to.  

What the order does do is direct EPA to work with the states in the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions to assess what stormwater fees cost residents, look at alternatives, and encourage repeal.