The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Thursday approved by a vote of 12-7 six water-related bills. Included among these is a compromise version of the controversial Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787).
The legislation reinstates the power of the Clean Water Act to protect all "waters of the United States,"replacing the term "navigable waters" and thus vastly expanding protection to the nation’s surface waters.
The Clean Water Act was weakened due to recent Supreme Court rulings and guidance issued by the Bush administration.
Committee Chairman Senator Barbara Boxer of California said, "Today the Environment and Public Works Committee took historic steps to restore, in a balanced way, the common-sense Clean Water Act protections that have been in place for decades. We also passed important measures to ensure our families have clean, safe water, to promote conservation of migratory birds, and to protect America’s beaches, lakes, rivers, bays and wetlands. I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as these bills are considered by the full Senate.”
Joan Mulhern, senior legislative counsel for Earthjustice, said in a statement: "For decades the Clean Water Act protected all streams, rivers and lakes from destruction–until 2001, when protections for thousands of water bodies were called into question by the Supreme Court. Polluters are seizing on this ambiguity in the law, so the nation can not afford to wait longer to fix this problem."
The ranking Republican on the Senate Committee, James Inhofe, spoke out against the bills.
"I see this bill as a significant part of a hostile agenda aimed squarely at rural America," Inhofe said. "Allowing EPA and the Corps to exercise unlimited regulatory authority over all inter- and intrastate water, or virtually anything that is wet, goes too far and is certainly beyond anything intended by the Clean Water Act. But, that is what S. 787 does."
Mulhern responded to Inhofe’s comments: "Unfortunately, some Senators on the committee, including Senators Inhofe (OK), Barrasso (WY), Vitter (LA), and others actually tried to exempt every stream and wetland in the country from the Clean Water Act. This extreme, anti-clean water position in the 21st century is shocking, especially considering that the Clean Water Act was passed unanimously in the Senate in 1972."
The legislation will next go to a full vote on the Senate floor.
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