Yes and no. If congress has granted the EPA authority to regulate water to ensure it's not bad for you, then someone needs to determine what "bad for you" means.
Previously, under Chevron, the courts would defer to the EPA as the experts to make that determination (with the understanding that congress could always pass more specific legislation if they felt the EPA was overstepping its granted authority)
What the Supreme Court has said is deferring to the agency is going too far, and that if congress wants specific things regulated then it needs to be specific in it's legislation. Prima facie that makes sense, except for two major problems: congress is not productive enough in passing legislation, and congress are not the experts
This means that when questions like this arise, it comes to the courts to be the ones who end up interpreting the statutes and making the determination on what "bad for you" means.
Or rather, judges have been given the power to make technical interpretations of law rather than just looking at the broad meaning of a law and leaving the technical interpretation to the agency.
Lead limits are in the text of the law, as they should be. So no need to cry wolf.
Section 1417 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) establishes the definition for “lead free” as a weighted average of 0.25% lead calculated across the wetted surfaces of a pipe, pipe fitting, plumbing fitting, and fixture and 0.2% lead for solder and flux. The Act also provides a methodology for calculating the weighted average of wetted surfaces.
Previously, under Chevron, the courts would defer to the EPA as the experts to make that determination (with the understanding that congress could always pass more specific legislation if they felt the EPA was overstepping its granted authority)
What the Supreme Court has said is deferring to the agency is going too far, and that if congress wants specific things regulated then it needs to be specific in it's legislation. Prima facie that makes sense, except for two major problems: congress is not productive enough in passing legislation, and congress are not the experts
This means that when questions like this arise, it comes to the courts to be the ones who end up interpreting the statutes and making the determination on what "bad for you" means.