Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Chair of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA), Chair of the Joint Economic Committee Don Beyer (D-VA) and 117 representatives yesterday wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) urging them to swiftly restore science-based safeguards to protect America’s waters and wetlands. In November 2021, the Biden administration released its draft rule to redefine the scope of waters protected under the Clean Water Act and repeal the deeply flawed Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR), commonly known as the Trump Dirty Water Rule.
“We write to applaud the Agencies for taking this concrete and positive step toward restoring the strong clean water protections that our constituents, and all Americans, depend on,” the representatives wrote. “Federal protections based on sound science and consistent with the Clean Water Act are essential to ensuring clean water, which is essential for our economy and a healthy environment.”
The representatives also emphasized how strong federal clean water protections are critical to realizing the administration’s clean water goals included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: “The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act made the ‘single largest investment in water that the federal government has ever made[,]’… Only with strong federal clean water protections, can the administration and EPA ensure that everyone—regardless of their zip code—has access to clean, safe water.”
The representatives concluded by underscoring how restoring long-standing Clean Water Act protections over rivers, streams, and wetlands ensure both robust protection of the nation’s waters and a robust agricultural economy.
