House OKs Sewage Disposal Exemption for San Diego : Environment: Gingrich singled out ‘dumb’ regulation for expedited repeal. Measure’s fate in Senate is uncertain.

In its first “corrections day” action, the House Tuesday passed a bill giving San Diego a permanent exemption from having to upgrade its sewage treatment plant.

The measure allows the city to continue pumping treated sewage through an outfall pipe 4 1/2 miles out in the Pacific Ocean, rather than spend more than $2 billion to abide by stricter federal clean-water rules that call for building a secondary treatment plant.

The 20-year-old San Diego sewage controversy was handpicked by House Speaker Newt Gingrich as an example of what he considers “dumb” federal laws to be targeted with corrective legislation under the expedited “corrections day” procedures, which require a three-fifths vote for passage.

“This is not a giant step, but a step in the right direction,” said Gingrich. “This is good for us to do for San Diego and for the country.”

Although criticized as a loophole that other communities would exploit, the bill passed easily, by a 269-156 recorded vote, considerably more than the three-fifths majority required. Forty-five Democrats voted in favor of the measure.

The city has wrestled with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for two decades over rules that mandated the city build a costly secondary-treatment plant. San Diego argued that its “advanced-primary” treatment method, combined with deep-ocean disposal of the effluent, was just as effective.

Critics of the tougher federal standards say they apply mainly to cities that discharge into rivers and lakes.

The National Academy of Science and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have stated that secondary treatment may not improve sewage’s effect on the environment in cases of deep-sea discharges.

The vote Tuesday was hailed by local officials as a victory over a heavy-handed federal bureaucracy.

“This is a great symbol of common sense and science meeting dumbbell regulations and overtaking it,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), one of five San Diego-area House members of both parties who fought for the bill.

“San Diego has been fighting this unnecessary federal regulation while a real public health threat--raw Mexican sewage--continues to close our beaches and plague our citizens,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, the freshman sponsor of the San Diego Coastal Corrections Act.

“[This bill] will provide the certainty of ending this battle once and for all,” said San Diego Mayor Susan Golding.

The bill faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) opposes it--and sits on the committee that oversees clean-water legislation.

“You can’t ‘correct’ San Diego’s fouled beaches and spoiled marine environment by throwing the Clean Water Act out the window,” Boxer said, “and if the Clean Water Act is the Republicans’ idea of a dumb law, then they are profoundly out of step with the American people. I have every intention to fight this attempt to gut the Clean Water Act in committee and, if necessary, on the Senate floor.”

Under House corrections day procedures, the bill was limited to one hour of debate and no amendments. The outcome was never in doubt. But Democratic foes hammered away at the Bilbray bill as a political gimmick that posed real environmental dangers.

“This is the beginning of the end for secondary treatment,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). “As a representative of a coastal state, my constituents do not want ocean disposal of waste. Today, it is California, but the next corrections day it could be your neighboring state,” Pallone warned.

The American Oceans Campaign, an marine environmental group based in Santa Monica, also lambasted the House action, labeling it unnecessary, scientifically unsound and a threat to public health.

“[Tuesday’s] vote was pure political grandstanding,” said Ted Morton, a spokesman for the group in Washington. “It sets a bad precedent, and other communities will want similar treatment.”

A Los Angeles official said Tuesday’s House action would not spur a similar move to exempt the city’s nearly complete transition to full secondary treatment.

But last spring, Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach) pushed through the House a bill that would give Los Angeles some partial relief from federal clean-water standards. The bill is now under consideration in the Senate.

Golding and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan unwittingly inspired Gingrich to develop the corrections day process. During talks in January, both mayors complained about onerous federal rules.

“We were talking about EPA’s grotesque requirements for San Diego that would have made sense for the Great Lakes but not Pacific Ocean,” Gingrich recalled.

Last month, the House adopted the accelerated procedure for getting rid of ludicrous, unneeded and “one size-fits-all” laws whose demise had broad House support.

But some Democrats criticized the selection of the San Diego sewage treatment plant as the premier dumb law to be subjected to the new rules.

“I support the idea of corrections day,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), “but we ought to correct laws that have unintended and burdensome effects . . . not special interests seeking special treatment. I hope this is an aberration of corrections day and not a signal of how it will work in the future.”