[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 714 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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116th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 714
Encouraging the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to
maintain and strengthen requirements under the Clean Water Act and
reverse ongoing administrative actions to weaken the Clean Water Act
and protections for waters of the United States.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 23, 2020
Ms. Duckworth (for herself, Mr. Booker, Mr. Merkley, Ms. Warren, Mr.
Heinrich, Ms. Harris, Mrs. Feinstein, and Mr. Markey) submitted the
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on
Environment and Public Works
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Encouraging the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to
maintain and strengthen requirements under the Clean Water Act and
reverse ongoing administrative actions to weaken the Clean Water Act
and protections for waters of the United States.
Whereas access to clean water is a fundamental human right;
Whereas the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (62 Stat. 1155, chapter 758) was
enacted into law in 1948;
Whereas the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Public Law
92-500; 86 Stat. 816) were enacted with bipartisan support and
significantly reorganized and expanded the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.) (commonly known as and hereinafter
referred to in this preamble as the ``Clean Water Act'');
Whereas the Clean Water Act is one of the most important laws of the United
States and the principal safeguard of the United States against
unregulated pollution or destruction of surface waters of the United
States;
Whereas the objective of the Clean Water Act is to ``restore and maintain the
chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters'';
Whereas the Clean Water Act declared national goals of eliminating the discharge
of pollutants into the waters of the United States by 1985 and, wherever
attainable, ensuring that waters were fishable and swimmable by 1983;
Whereas the Clean Water Act provides strong and comprehensive requirements for
the control of pollutants in the waters of the United States;
Whereas the Clean Water Act authorizes Federal financial assistance for building
and upgrading municipal sewage treatment plants and other types of water
quality improvements projects;
Whereas rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, wetlands, and other waters have enormous
public health, community welfare, economic, and ecological importance to
the United States, considering that--
(1) 1 in 3 individuals in the United States receive drinking water from
systems that draw supply from headwater, intermittent, or ephemeral
streams;
(2) according to a report of the Environmental Protection Agency,
streams provide the majority of water to most rivers and ``transport
sediment, wood, organic matter, nutrients, chemical contaminants, and many
of the organisms found in rivers'';
(3) chemical, physical, and biological processes in streams can convert
nitrogen and other nutrients, preventing nitrogen and other nutrients from
causing downstream harm;
(4) wetlands prevent and minimize flooding by storing as much as
between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 gallons of water for each acre of wetland;
(5) wetlands and other waters in the flood plains of rivers and streams
help prevent pollution from reaching downstream waters;
(6) \3/4\ of fish harvested commercially depend on wetlands;
(7) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that
``about 91 million people over the age of 16 swim in oceans, lakes, and
rivers each year in the United States'';
(8) approximately 37 percent of water withdrawals, or 118,000,000,000
gallons of water withdrawals per day, are used for irrigation, and 52
percent of water withdrawals are taken from surface waters;
(9) a recent study estimated that wetlands around the world provide
ecosystem services like flood prevention and pollution filtration worth
more than $47,000,000,000,000 per year;
(10) fishing and other water sports contribute $175,000,000,000
annually to the economy of the United States and support more than
1,500,000 jobs;
(11) companies often need clean water in their industrial processes or
as a component of their end product, such as craft beer brewers that depend
on a reliable source of clean water, add approximately $76,000,000,000
annually to the economy of the United States, and support more than 500,000
jobs;
(12) according to 1 study, the ecological restoration economy, which
includes mitigation for harms to waters due to discharges of dredged or
fill material, ``directly employs 126,000 workers and generates $9.5
billion in economic output'' per year, which ``supports an additional
95,000 jobs and $15 billion in economic output through indirect (business-
to-business) linkages and increased household spending'';
(13) more than 318,000,000 individuals visited national parks in the
United States in 2018 to engage in recreation and be inspired by thundering
waterfalls, streaming geysers, desert springs, ocean beaches, and jeweled
lakes, generating $40,000,000,000 for the economy of the United States and
more than 330,000 private sector jobs;
(14) the Environmental Protection Agency reports that the Great Lakes
contain ``84% of North America's surface fresh water'' and ``about 21% of
the world's supply of surface fresh water'';
(15) restoring and protecting the Great Lakes and their tributaries
also protects the $6,000,000,000,000 regional economy of the Great Lakes
and the 1,500,000 jobs and $62,000,000,000 in wages directly connected to
the Great Lakes; and
(16) the Great Lakes and their tributaries facilitate nearly
$16,000,000,000 in annual spending by residents and the 37,000,000 hunters,
anglers, bird watchers, and other tourists who visit the region for
recreation;
Whereas water pollution and the loss of water resources can cause catastrophic
harm to the health and economic strength of communities, evidenced by
the fact that--
(1) in 2014, a harmful algal bloom in western Lake Erie prompted a 3-
day shutdown of the drinking water supply of Toledo, Ohio, affecting
approximately 500,000 individuals;
(2) a spill of a toxic chemical into the Elk River in Charleston, West
Virginia, caused a cutoff of drinking water for approximately 300,000
individuals for several days;
(3) outbreaks of blue-green algae and red tide in Florida have caused
widespread harm to businesses and have killed a substantial number of
aquatic animals over multiple years, with the effects of the outbreaks in
2018 being particular severe;
(4) in 2008, the coal ash waste pit of the Tennessee Valley Authority
near Kingston, Tennessee, experienced a mammoth structural failure and
released more than 1,000,000,000 tons of waste into the Emory and Clinch
Rivers, and a 2019 analysis found that similar pits around the country
routinely leak and contaminate nearby groundwater and surface waters;
(5) beaches in multiple States, including Mississippi, New Jersey,
Washington, and New York, were forced to close due to outbreaks of algae
that are commonly fueled by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution;
(6) intense flooding is occurring in places like Houston, Texas, where
wetland destruction is believed to be contributing to the severity of the
flooding; and
(7) many areas of the United States are expected to experience worsened
drought conditions with climate change, making the preservation of water
resources more critical;
Whereas the Clean Water Act dramatically slowed the rate of wetlands loss in the
United States from more than 500,000 acres annually in the 1950s to
approximately 80,000 acres annually in the late 1990s;
Whereas the quality of numerous water bodies has substantially improved since
the adoption of the Clean Water Act, including the Charles River in
Massachusetts, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Great Lakes;
Whereas, despite the improvements brought about by the Clean Water Act, the
United States still faces major water resource and pollution challenges,
evidenced by the fact that--
(1) according to the most recent State data submitted to the
Environmental Protection Agency--
G (A) 53 percent of assessed rivers and streams do not meet 1 or
more water quality standards, which are established to ensure waters are
clean enough for specific uses like fishing and swimming;
G (B) 71 percent of assessed lakes, reservoirs, and ponds are
impaired;
G (C) 80 percent of assessed bays and estuaries are impaired; and
G (D) 72 percent of assessed coastal shoreline waters are impaired;
and
(2) the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report
stating that the increasing frequency of harmful algal blooms is associated
with increasing temperatures and levels of nutrients in waters of the
United States;
Whereas the 2017 Infrastructure Report Card of the American Society of Civil
Engineers gave the wastewater infrastructure of the United States a
grade of D+;
Whereas the most recent Clean Watersheds Needs Survey report to Congress
identified not less than $271,000,000,000 worth of capital needs for
wastewater, storm water, and other clean water infrastructure;
Whereas the condition of the waters of the United States consistently ranks as
one of the most acute environmental worries of individuals in the United
States, with 80 percent of respondents in a March 2019 Gallup Poll
indicating that they worry a great deal or a fair amount about the
pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs;
Whereas the United States Commission on Civil Rights recommended further study
and analysis of Federal laws, including the Clean Water Act, to analyze
gaps in civil rights protections and found that the ``EPA's definition
of environmental justice recognizes environmental justice as a civil
right, fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people
regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to
the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws,
regulations and policies'';
Whereas the United States Geological Survey conducted limited monitoring of 17
perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (referred to in this
preamble as ``PFAS'') in source and treated public water supplies from
25 drinking water facilities and found PFAS in all source water and
public water supply samples collected;
Whereas a study led by Harvard University researchers found that the drinking
water supplies for not less than 6,000,000 individuals in the United
States exceed the health advisory of the Environmental Protection Agency
for 2 PFAS, perfluorooctanoic acid (commonly referred to as ``PFOA'')
and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (commonly referred to as ``PFOS''),
and more recent information indicates that more comprehensive monitoring
would find that the drinking water of many times more than 6,000,000
individuals in the United States contains PFAS at levels that pose
significant health hazards;
Whereas the Environmental Protection Agency has initiated numerous
administrative actions that collectively would eviscerate the
protections of the Clean Water Act and other safeguards for clean water,
including--
(1) repealing science-based protections for streams, wetlands, and
other waters and the exclusion of millions of miles of streams and tens of
millions of acres of wetlands from the pollution control programs of the
Clean Water Act;
(2) easing restrictions on wastewater plants, authorizing the plants to
release partially treated sewage during rainstorms;
(3) refusing to develop regulations mandated by the Clean Water Act
aimed at avoiding and minimizing spills of hazardous substances;
(4) weakening rules relating to the siting, operating, monitoring, and
closing of pits where coal ash and other coal combustion waste is dumped;
(5) exempting polluters who harm waterways from the penalties of the
Clean Water Act if their discharge first travels through groundwater from
the discharge permitting program of the Clean Water Act;
(6) restricting the authority of experts from the Environmental
Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act to stop dumping projects that
cause unacceptable harms to water bodies;
(7) delaying and weakening toxic pollution discharge limits for power
plants; and
(8) curtailing the rights of States and Tribal nations under the Clean
Water Act to review federally permitted projects and impose conditions on
or reject a project, as appropriate, to prevent harm to their waterways;
Whereas the United States remains far from achieving the objective of the Clean
Water Act by putting critical resources that provide enormous value to
the United States at risk; and
Whereas the proposed actions of the Environmental Protection Agency would
substantially worsen the risk to critical resources: Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved, That the Senate encourages the Administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency to--
(1) maintain and strengthen, rather than attack,
requirements that keep waterways of the United States clean;
(2) end any ongoing administrative actions that weaken--
(A) existing regulations that were promulgated
under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33
U.S.C. 1251 et seq.); and
(B) other requirements protecting the waters of the
United States; and
(3) initiate actions to reverse any administrative actions
that have already been completed that weaken the implementation
by the Federal Government of--
(A) the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33
U.S.C. 1251 et seq.); and
(B) other requirements that protect the waters of
the United States.
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