[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5088 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 5088

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


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 21, 2010

Mr. Oberstar (for himself, Mr. Dingell, and Mr. Ehlers) introduced the 
 following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation 
                           and Infrastructure

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
   To amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to reaffirm 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 ``America's Commitment to Clean Water 
Act''.

SEC. 2. PURPOSES.

    The purposes of this Act are as follows:
            (1) To reaffirm the original objective of Congress in 
        enacting the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 
        1972 (86 Stat. 816) to restore and maintain the chemical, 
        physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters.
            (2) To reaffirm the definition of the waters of the United 
        States that are subject to the Federal Water Pollution Control 
        Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) consistent with the interpretation 
        of such Act prior to the decisions of the United States Supreme 
        Court in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United 
        States Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001), and the 
        consolidated cases of Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. 
        United States Army Corps of Engineers, 547 U.S. 715 (2006), by 
        legislatively overturning the effect of those decisions.
            (3) To define the term ``waters of the United States'' and 
        to protect such waters as authorized by the powers granted 
        under section 8 of article I, section 2 of article II, and 
        section 3 of article IV of the Constitution of the United 
        States and in a manner consistent with the Federal Water 
        Pollution Control Act and subsequent amendments thereto.

SEC. 3. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) The decisions of the United States Supreme Court in 
        Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States 
        Army Corps of Engineers and the consolidated cases of Rapanos 
        v. United States and Carabell v. United States Army Corps of 
        Engineers unduly restricted the scope of the Federal Water 
        Pollution Control Act and impair the statutory protections for 
        waters of the United States contrary to the intent of Congress.
            (2) Water is a unique and precious resource that is 
        necessary to sustain human life and the life of animals and 
        plants.
            (3) Water is important for agriculture, transportation, 
        energy production, recreation, fishing and shellfishing, and 
        municipal and commercial uses.
            (4) Water moves through interconnected hydrologic cycles, 
        and the pollution, degradation, or destruction of a part of an 
        aquatic system, including geographically isolated or intrastate 
        waters, can affect the chemical, physical, and biological 
        integrity of other parts of the aquatic system.
            (5) Small and intermittent streams, including seasonal 
        streams, and their headwaters comprise the majority of all 
        stream and river miles in the conterminous United States. These 
        waters affect the introduction of pollutants to larger rivers 
        and streams, the life cycles of aquatic organisms and other 
        wildlife, and the flow of higher order streams during floods.
            (6) The pollution, degradation, and destruction of waters 
        of the United States, individually and in the aggregate, have a 
        substantial relation to and effect on interstate commerce. 
        Discharges of pollutants into waters of the United States are 
        the result of, relate to, and are a necessary part of 
        commercial or economic activity.
            (7) Millions of people in the United States depend on the 
        waters of the United States, including wetlands, to improve 
        water quality, recharge surface and subsurface drinking water 
        supplies, protect human health, and create commercial or 
        economic opportunity. Source water protection areas containing 
        one or more small or intermittent streams provide water to 
        public drinking water supplies that serve more than 117,000,000 
        people in the United States.
            (8) Millions of people in the United States enjoy 
        recreational activities that depend on the waters of the United 
        States, including wetlands, 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.
            (9) Protecting the waters of the United States from 
        discharges of pollutants, degradation, and destruction is a 
        necessary and proper means of implementing treaties to which 
        the United States is a party, including treaties protecting 
        fish, birds, and wildlife.
            (10) Protecting the waters of the United States from 
        discharges of pollutants, degradation, and destruction is a 
        necessary and proper means of protecting the territory or other 
        property belonging to the United States, including parkland, 
        refuge land, and other land under Federal ownership and the 
        waters encompassed by that land.
            (11) Administrative and judicial interpretations of the 
        Federal Water Pollution Control Act have treated ground water 
        separately from ``waters of the United States'' as that term is 
        used in such Act, and ground water has not been considered to 
        be ``waters of the United States'' under such Act. This Act and 
        the amendments made by this Act do not affect those 
        administrative and judicial interpretations.
            (12) This Act and the amendments made by this Act do not 
        affect the authority of the Secretary of the Army or the 
        Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under the 
        provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act as 
        interpreted or applied by the Secretary or Administrator as of 
        January 8, 2001.

SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

    Section 502 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C. 
1362) is amended--
            (1) by repealing paragraph (7); and
            (2) by adding at the end the following:
            ``(26) Waters of the united states.--
                    ``(A) In general.--The term `waters of the United 
                States' includes--
                            ``(i) all waters that are currently used, 
                        were used in the past, or may be susceptible to 
                        use in interstate or foreign commerce, 
                        including all waters that are subject to the 
                        ebb and flow of the tide;
                            ``(ii) all interstate and international 
                        waters, including interstate and international 
                        wetlands;
                            ``(iii) all other waters, including 
                        intrastate lakes, rivers, streams (including 
                        intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, 
                        wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet 
                        meadows, playa lakes, or natural ponds, the 
                        use, degradation, or destruction of which does 
                        or would affect interstate or foreign commerce, 
                        the obligations of the United States under a 
                        treaty, or the territory or other property 
                        belonging to the United States;
                            ``(iv) all impoundments of waters otherwise 
                        defined as waters of the United States under 
                        this paragraph;
                            ``(v) tributaries of waters identified in 
                        clauses (i) through (iv);
                            ``(vi) the territorial seas; and
                            ``(vii) waters, including wetlands, 
                        adjacent to waters identified in clauses (i) 
                        through (vi).
                    ``(B) Exclusions.--The term `waters of the United 
                States' does not include--
                            ``(i) waters that are all or part of a 
                        waste treatment system, including treatment 
                        ponds or lagoons designed to meet the 
                        requirements of this Act; or
                            ``(ii) prior converted cropland, except 
                        that, notwithstanding the determination of an 
                        area's status as prior converted cropland by 
                        the Secretary of Agriculture, for the purposes 
                        of this Act, the final authority regarding 
                        jurisdiction under this Act remains with the 
                        Administrator.
            ``(27) Waste treatment system.--
                    ``(A) In general.--The term `waste treatment 
                system' means a confined and discrete system or 
                structure that is specifically designed and engineered 
                to meet the requirements of this Act and that is 
                determined by the Administrator to be documented by the 
                applicable permitting authority under section 402 or 
                404.
                    ``(B) Special rule.--A system or structure may not 
                be documented as a waste treatment system and the 
                Administrator may not make a determination under 
                subparagraph (A) if, after the date of enactment of 
                this paragraph, such system or structure is created in 
                waters of the United States or results from the 
                impoundment of waters of the United States.
                    ``(C) Grandfather.--Notwithstanding subparagraph 
                (B), a waste treatment system in existence and 
                documented before the date of enactment of this 
                paragraph may include a waste treatment system that was 
                either originally created in or resultant from the 
                impoundment of waters of the United States if the 
                discharge from such system meets applicable standards 
                and limitations at the point of discharge in a manner 
                similar to other discharges under this Act.
                    ``(D) Applicability.--The definition contained in 
                this paragraph shall apply only for the purposes of 
                paragraph (26).
            ``(28) Prior converted cropland.--The term `prior converted 
        cropland' means a wetland as determined by the Secretary of 
        Agriculture--
                    ``(A) that has been converted by draining, 
                dredging, filling, leveling, or other manipulation 
                (including the removal of woody vegetation or any 
                activity that results in impairing or reducing the flow 
                and circulation of water) for the purpose of or to have 
                the effect of making possible the production of an 
                agricultural commodity without further application of 
                the manipulations described herein if--
                            ``(i) such production would not have been 
                        possible but for the conversion; and
                            ``(ii) before the conversion such land was 
                        wetland, farmed wetland, or farmed-wetland 
                        pasture;
                    ``(B) on which such conversion occurred prior to 
                December 23, 1985;
                    ``(C) on which an agricultural commodity had been 
                produced at least once before December 23, 1985;
                    ``(D) that, as of December 23, 1985, did not 
                support woody vegetation and met the following 
                hydrologic criteria:
                            ``(i) inundation was fewer than 15 
                        consecutive days during the growing season or 
                        10 percent of the growing season, whichever is 
                        less, in most years (50 percent chance or 
                        more); and
                            ``(ii) if a pothole, playa, or pocosin, 
                        ponding was fewer than 7 consecutive days 
                        during the growing season in most years (50 
                        percent chance or more) and saturation was 
                        fewer than 14 consecutive days during the 
                        growing season most years (50 percent chance or 
                        more); and
                    ``(E) that is devoted to an agricultural use.''.

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 paragraph 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''.
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