Waters Advocacy Coalition

Reaction from the States: From Coast to Coast, Concerns over Federal Water Legislation Grows

After almost 40 years of environmental progress, members of Congress recently introduced legislation to dramatically change the Clean Water Act called America’s Commitment to Clean Water Act (ACCWA). By greatly expanding the federal government’s authority, the ACCWA could undermine the federal-state partnerships created by the Clean Water Act – potentially giving the federal government jurisdiction over all water in the United States, including interstate waterways and water on private property. 

With Congress considering such a significant change to this historic and successful law, the ACCWA continues to gain attention from local, state and federal officials, along with editorial boards nationwide. Discussions are focusing on two, key areas: the significant expansion the federal government’s authority over water and the repercussions this bill would have on personal property rights.

Let’s look back on some of the latest reactions to this legislation and the concerns being voiced across the nation:

Minnesota

Dennis Fink, a St. Louis County commissioner, chairman of St. Louis County’s Environment and Natural Resource Committee and vice chairman of the National Association of County Officials’ Water Subcommittee, recently wrote an opinion column featured in the Duluth News Tribune, which addressed preserving local governments’ authority under the Clean Water Act titled, “Commissioner’s view: Clean water bill ends local control”:

Ask anyone if clean, safe water is important and the overwhelming response will be an emphatic “YES!” Then ask who should be responsible for guaranteeing that clean, safe water is available and the answer most assuredly will be “everyone.” Specifically, that means every local, state and tribal unit of government, as well as the federal government. Herein lies the problem with U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar’s new bill, America’s Commitment to the Clean Water Act, and its predecessor, the Clean Water Restoration Act.

“The new act, like its predecessor … simply looks to return the federal law to the way it was before the Supreme Court rulings,” the News Tribune wrote in its April 22 Our View editorial, “Clean Water Act: Clean it up already.” But nothing is simple in government. Not even this compact little bill that proposes nothing more than to change the words “navigable waters” to “waters of the United States” and defines this new term. Both sides of this debate agree “navigable waters” defines and limits the activities and actions of the federal government, specifically the Corps of Engineers and the EPA. And the courts have been acknowledging this same fact since 1973, starting only months after the October 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act.

Oberstar asserts the America’s Commitment to the Clean Water Act will restore the federal government’s authority to a time prior to these two court cases. These cases are about the Corps overreaching its jurisdiction. To give them back that power takes away existing local control and places it in the hands of the federal government. I, for one, am against that.

Virginia

Meanwhile on the East Coast, Virginia’s Free Lance-Star wrote an editorial piece entitled “Muddy Waters,” which echoed Commissioner Fink’s views:

Displeased with both decisions [in SWANCC and Rapanos], Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., has introduced a bill called the Clean Water Restoration Act. He says the aim of the bill, which would remove the word “navigable” from the Clean Water Act, is to return the law to its original intent.

Yet, as opponents point out, removing that one word would give the federal government jurisdiction over every stream, farm pond, swamp, and water-holding ditch in the country.

The simple solution: Let the states protect the nation’s waters, with federal backup. State government officials have a better appreciation of local needs than Beltway bureaucrats. With research and guidelines provided by Washington, they can do a good job. If they fail, they are answering to voters.

Protecting our waters is important–but so is protecting our Constitution. The Clean Water Act intentionally limited federal control to navigable waters. Steady as she goes.

Oregon

Earlier this month, the East Oregonian contributed to the steady drumbeat of editorials on the ACCWA by printing a similar piece titled, “Bill should be dead in the water:”

We can blame Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., who introduced the America’s Commitment to Clean Water Act. He aims to remove federal Clean Water Act requirements that regulated waterways be navigable. That would mean the government would control and regulate all inland waters on public and private lands.

More specifically, it would dramatically expand the Clean Water Act to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers control over all the water – and all the land – in the United States.

Walden correctly calls the bill an unprecedented federal takeover of Oregon water law and an attack on state water rights. The state has several layers of protection that anyone must go through before accessing water in a ditch or stream. We think it works well.

Having Oregonians making decisions about the use of Oregon’s waterways is far better than leaving the job to federal bureaucrats who don’t know a salmon from a sardine or the Columbia River from Columbia University.

Washington

U.S. Representative Doc Hastings from the nearby state of Washington recently penned an opinion column in the Othello Outlook that explains how by expanding the federal government’s authority through the Clean Water Act, ACCWA could add more layers of bureaucratic federal red tape, which could threaten jobs, hurt business and affect job growth:

Unfortunately, the legislation proposed last week removes the word “navigable” from the current definition of the Clean Water Act, effectively giving the federal government control over virtually all waters and making them subject to new and sweeping federal regulations and permitting. Current law allowing federal oversight of major waterways where boat navigation occurs makes sense, sending EPA bureaucrats into our backyards and onto our farms extends the tentacles of the federal government where they do not belong.

This bill is nothing more than another dramatic expansion of federal government control over Americans’ livelihoods and their private property. If this bill were to become law, every body of water in America would be at risk of job-killing federal regulation — from farmers’ irrigation canals to backyard ponds and streams to mud-puddles left by rainstorms. If passed, this legislation could cost thousands of jobs throughout central Washington and the rural western United States.

The bottom line is…this expansion of the Clean Water Act is another step by the federal government to take control of segments of our economy. Jobs and the very viability of farms and small businesses across rural America will be put at risk if this massive power grab succeeds.

After considering these editorials and columns from across the nation, it is apparent that citizens are increasingly concerned about this legislation giving the federal government jurisdiction over all waters. Clearly, states – instead of federal bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.—are best suited to regulate and control local water permitting and authority. Potentially forcing every family farmer and town supervisor from California to Virginia (and everywhere in between) to figure out whether they need permission from the federal government to treat their crops or repair a road is not a commonsense policy.