[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2780 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







107th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2780

    To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify the 
  jurisdiction of the United States over waters of the United States.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             July 24, 2002

 Mr. Feingold introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
       referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify the 
  jurisdiction of the United States over waters of the United States.

    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 ``Clean Water Authority Restoration 
Act of 2002''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Water is a unique and precious resource that is 
        necessary to sustain human life and the life of animals and 
        plants.
            (2) Water is used not only for human, animal, and plant 
        consumption, but is also important for agriculture, 
        transportation, flood control, energy production, recreation, 
        fishing and shellfishing, and municipal and commercial uses.
            (3) Water has significant historic and cultural value in 
        our society.
            (4) In enacting the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 
        U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) in 1972 and through subsequent amendment, 
        including the Clean Water Act of 1977 (91 Stat. 1566) and the 
        Water Quality Act of 1987 (101 Stat. 7), Congress established 
        the national objective of restoring and maintaining the 
        chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of 
        the United States and recognized that achieving this objective 
        requires restoration and maintenance of the natural structures 
        and functions of the aquatic ecosystems of the United States.
            (5) Water is transported through interconnected hydrologic 
        cycles, and the pollution, impairment, or destruction of part 
        of an aquatic system may affect the chemical, physical, and 
        biological integrity of other interconnected parts of the 
        aquatic system.
            (6) Protection of intrastate waters, including waters that 
        appear to be isolated, along with other waters of the United 
        States, is necessary to restore and maintain the chemical, 
        physical, and biological integrity of all waters in the United 
        States.
            (7) The regulation of discharges of pollutants into 
        isolated and intrastate waters is an integral part of the 
        comprehensive clean water regulatory program of the United 
        States.
            (8) The term ``waters of the United States'' means all 
        waters of the United States subject to the powers of the 
        Federal Government under the Constitution, including wetlands 
        adjacent to bodies of water and other wetlands and waters often 
        referred to as isolated.
            (9) Regardless of whether a wetland or other water is 
        referred to as isolated, wetlands, lakes, ponds, and other 
        types of water in the United States are an integral part of the 
        aquatic environment that contribute to the chemical, physical, 
        and biological integrity of the aquatic system.
            (10) The waters of the United States, including intrastate 
        and isolated waters, filter pollutants from surface run-off and 
        remove pollutants before the water is released to groundwater 
        or surface water or taken up by plants and animals and widely 
        dispersed throughout the food chain.
            (11) The waters of the United States, including intrastate 
        and isolated waters, also provide crucial habitat for flora and 
        fauna that contribute to the biological integrity of the 
        aquatic environment, including unique aquatic vegetation, 
        amphibians, reptiles, fish, shorebirds, raptors, waterfowl, and 
        other migratory birds.
            (12) More than one-half of the duck population of the 
        United States breeds in intrastate and isolated waters, as do 
        approximately one-half of all amphibian species in the United 
        States.
            (13) Small and periodically-flowing streams comprise the 
        majority of all stream channels in the United States and serve 
        critical biological and hydrological functions that affect 
        entire watersheds, especially the life cycles of aquatic 
        organisms and the movement of higher order streams during 
        floods.
            (14) Destroying, polluting, or altering small stream 
        channels often results in an accumulation of negative effects 
        throughout a watershed, including the introduction of 
        pollutants to larger-order streams and rivers.
            (15) The pollution or other degradation of waters of the 
        United States, including isolated and intrastate waters, 
        individually and in the aggregate, has a substantial relation 
        to and affect on interstate commerce.
            (16) Protection of the waters of the United States, 
        including intrastate and isolated waters, is necessary to 
        prevent significant harm to interstate commerce and sustain a 
        robust system of interstate commerce in the future.
            (17) The navigation system of the United States directly 
        benefits from maintaining the variety of water types that 
        collect, store, and filter run-off because that collection, 
        storage, and filtration greatly reduces the quantity of 
        sediment deposits and navigation disruption in the waters of 
        the United States, and without the direct benefits of isolated 
        and intrastate waters, the United States would spend millions 
        of additional dollars on navigational dredging projects.
            (18) Thousands of businesses and communities depend on 
        wetlands and intrastate and isolated waters for protection from 
        flooding.
            (19) Draining or filling isolated wetlands and channelizing 
        or filling streams, including intrastate streams, causes or 
        exacerbates flooding.
            (20) Floods and the risk of floods are a significant burden 
        on interstate commerce because floods damage and destroy public 
        infrastructure, private homes, and businesses.
            (21) Millions of people in the United States depend on 
        intrastate and isolated wetlands to filter water and recharge 
        surface and subsurface drinking water supplies.
            (22) Polluted drinking water and depleted drinking water 
        supplies are significant burdens on interstate commerce because 
        the lack of a safe and ample water supply significantly limits 
        economic growth and adversely affects human health.
            (23) Agriculture depends on intrastate and isolated waters 
        for irrigation, watering stock, and maintenance of water supply 
        to wells.
            (24) Millions of people in the United States enjoy 
        recreational activities that depend on intrastate and isolated 
        waters, such as waterfowl hunting, bird watching, fishing, and 
        photography and other graphic arts, and those activities and 
        associated travel generate billions of dollars of income each 
        year for the travel, tourism, recreation, and sporting sectors 
        of the economy of the United States.
            (25) Discharges of dredged and fill material and other 
        pollutants into waters of the United States, including 
        intrastate and isolated waters, are almost always associated 
        with activities that are commercial or economic in nature.
            (26) Wetlands, including intrastate and isolated wetlands, 
        are routinely filled to construct roads, parking lots, 
        residential subdivisions, commercial buildings, solid waste 
        landfills, and recreational and institutional facilities, all 
        of which have a substantial relation to and effect on 
        interstate commerce.
            (27) Activities that result in the discharge of pollutants 
        into waters of the United States are commercial or economic in 
        nature, including industrial production, transportation and 
        infrastructure development, residential and commercial 
        construction and site development, navigation, agriculture and 
        silviculture, and resource extraction.
            (28) In enacting the Federal Water Pollution Control Act 
        and its amendments, Congress recognized that--
                    (A) inconsistent State water pollution control laws 
                are insufficient to protect the aquatic ecosystems of 
                the United States; and
                    (B) uniform, minimum national water quality and 
                aquatic ecosystem protection standards are essential to 
                prevent incentives to lower environmental standards and 
                allow businesses in States with less protective 
                environmental standards to achieve greater profits, not 
                only at the expense of the downstream public but also 
                at the expense of businesses in States that impose more 
                protective environmental standards.
            (29) States have the responsibility and right to prevent, 
        reduce, and eliminate pollution of waters, and the Federal 
        Water Pollution Control Act respects the rights and 
        responsibilities of States by preserving for States the ability 
        to manage permitting, grant, and research programs to prevent, 
        reduce, and eliminate pollution, and to establish standards and 
        programs more protective of a State's waters than is provided 
        under Federal standards and programs.
            (30) Protecting the quality of and regulating activities 
        affecting the waters of the United States is a necessary and 
        proper means of implementing treaties to which the United 
        States is a party, including treaties protecting species of 
        fish, birds, and wildlife, such as--
                    (A) the Convention for the Protection of Migratory 
                Birds in the United States and Canada, signed at 
                Washington on August 16, 1916 (39 Stat. 1702);
                    (B) the Convention for the Protection of Migratory 
                Birds and Game Mammals, signed at Mexico City on 
                February 7, 1936 (50 Stat. 1311); and
                    (C) the Convention on Nature Protection and 
                Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, with 
                an annex, opened for signature at the Pan American 
                Union at Washington on October 12, 1940 (56 Stat. 
                1354).
            (31) Protecting the quality of and regulating activities 
        affecting the waters of the United States is a necessary and 
        proper means of protecting Federal land, including hundreds of 
        millions of acres of parkland, refuge land, and other land 
        under Federal ownership and the wide array of waters 
        encompassed by that land.
            (32) Protecting the quality of and regulating activities 
        affecting the waters of the United States is necessary to 
        protect Federal land and waters from discharges of pollutants 
        and other forms of degradation.

SEC. 3. PURPOSES.

    The purposes of this Act are as follows:
            (1) To provide protection to waters of the United States to 
        the fullest extent of the legislative authority of Congress 
        under the Constitution, including the Commerce Clause, the 
        Property Clause, the Treaty Clause, and the Necessary and 
        Proper Clause of Articles I and IV of the Constitution.
            (2) To regulate activities affecting the waters of the 
        United States, including intrastate and isolated waters.
            (3) To restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and 
        biological integrity of the waters of the United States.

SEC. 4. DEFINITION OF WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES.

    Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 
1362) is amended--
            (1) by striking paragraph (7);
            (2) by redesignating paragraphs (8) through (23) as 
        paragraphs (7) through (22), respectively; and
            (3) by adding at the end the following:
            ``(23) Waters of the united states.--The term `waters of 
        the United States' means all waters subject to the ebb and flow 
        of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and 
        intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, 
        rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, 
        sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, 
        playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the 
        foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or 
        activities affecting these waters, are subject to the 
        legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.''.

SEC. 5. CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.

    The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) is 
amended--
            (1) by striking ``navigable waters of the United States'' 
        each place it appears and inserting ``waters of the United 
        States'';
            (2) in section 304(l)(1) by striking ``navigable waters'' 
        in the heading and inserting ``waters of the united states''; 
        and
            (3) by striking ``navigable waters'' each place it appears 
        and inserting ``waters of the United States''.
                                 <all>