[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 138 Introduced in House (IH)]

103d CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 138

  To ensure equal treatment for playa lakes, prairie potholes, vernal 
   pools, pocosins, and other special wetlands under Federal wetland 
                         delineation criteria.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 5, 1993

 Mr. Combest introduced the following bill; which was referred jointly 
 to the Committees on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Public Works and 
                    Transportation, and Agriculture

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To ensure equal treatment for playa lakes, prairie potholes, vernal 
   pools, pocosins, and other special wetlands under Federal wetland 
                         delineation criteria.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Wetlands Delineation Fairness Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

    (a) Findings.--Congress finds that--
            (1) new Federal wetland delineation criteria are currently 
        being developed to address concerns raised by the 
        implementation of the Federal Manual for Identifying and 
        Delineating Jurisdictional Wetlands;
            (2) the proposed changes to the delineation criteria are 
        intended to increase the fairness of wetland determinations and 
        to reduce erroneous wetland determinations;
            (3) the proposed changes allow several categories of lands, 
        such as playas or playa lakes, prairie potholes, vernal pools, 
        and pocosins, to be held to different delineation requirements; 
        and
            (4) these different delineation requirements are 
        inequitable and unjustified.
    (b) Purposes.--It is the purpose of this Act to provide for the 
equal treatment of all lands under Federal wetland delineation 
criteria.

SEC. 3. EQUAL TREATMENT.

    (a) General Rule.--Federal wetlands delineation criteria regarding 
wetland hydrology shall apply uniformly to all areas, including areas 
that may be known as playas, playa lakes, prairie potholes, vernal 
pools, and pocosins.
    (b) Wetland Hydrology Defined.--For purposes of this section, the 
term ``wetland hydrology'' means the number of consecutive days that an 
area must be inundated or saturated with water.

SEC. 4. APPLICATION.

    This Act shall apply to wetland delineation criteria promulgated or 
adopted after January 1, 1992.

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