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I will research that. It was MY understanding that the stricter 'parts per million' that were to go into effect (via Clinton) were rescinded. NOT all the way back to where they had been initially, but to a lower, more manageable level. I live in the west (Oregon) and I remember the discussions on this point---but as I said earlier on this thread, I am not infallible and could be mistaken.

I just looked on the EPA web site. Here's the official explanation on why the standard was reviewed: Following the January 22, 2001 Federal Register promulgation of the arsenic rule, a number of concerns were raised to EPA by States, public water systems, and other stakeholders regarding the adequacy of science and the basis for national cost estimates underlying the rule. Because of the importance of the arsenic rule and the national debate surrounding it related to science and costs, EPA's Administrator publicly announced on March 20, 2001, that the Agency would take additional steps to reassess the scientific and cost issues associated with this rule and seek further public input on each of these important issues.

The 10ppb rule still goes into effect on its orginal schedule. Everyone has to be fully compliant by January, 2006. Even though there was plenty of time to conduct the review without jeopardizing implementation, we were treated to hysteria by the media and the Democrat commercials (I'm not sure those are actualy two different things.) There had been an exception on the books for Idaho since 1997. Then there was this pile of confusion:

On March 26, 2001, EPA proposed to withdraw Vermont, the District of Columbia, Kansas and New Jersey from the National Toxics Rule (NTR) for certain human health and aquatic life criteria where the State adopted criteria that fully meet the requirements of the CWA. The proposed rule provided for a 60-day public comment period.

In the rest of the text it looks like they comply at a state level so they're exempt from the national one(?) Confusing.