1.This Act may be cited as the
America’s Commitment to Clean Water
Act
.
2.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.
3.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.
4.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)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)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)
(A)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)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)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)The
definition contained in this paragraph shall apply only for the purposes of
paragraph (26).
(28)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.
.
5.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
.