Legislation Introduced to Counter Bush Rollback of Clean Water Regulations

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) introduced legislation on Feb. 12 that would prohibit the dumping of industrial waste into rivers and streams, a practice the Bush Administration would have allowed when it made a rule change to the Clean Water Act last May.

Pallone and Shay’s legislation, the Clean Water

Protection Act of 2003, protects the definition of "fill material" in the Clean Water Act from being expanded to include mining wastes and other pollutants. The legislation restores the prohibition on using waste as "fill" that had been included in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regulations since 1977.

"Our bipartisan legislation is needed to ensure our streams and waterways aren’t buried under millions of tons of mining and other industrial wastes," Pallone said. "While the legal debate continues, it is critical that we support the true intentions of the Clean Water Act and oppose the continued efforts of the Bush Administration to use our nation’s waterways as dumping grounds for industrial wastes."

"It is my hope this legislation signals to the EPA that Congress will not sit silently by as our environment is destroyed," Shays said.

One week after the Bush Administration amended the Clean Water rule last May a federal judge in West Virginia, Chief Judge Charles H. Haden II, rejected the Administration’s decision by stating that according to the Clean Water Act "only the United States Congress can rewrite the Act to allow fills with no purpose or use but the deposit of waste." Last month, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Judge Haden’s decision, making a legislative remedy necessary.

Pallone and Shays said that creating a statutory definition of "fill material" that expressly excludes waste materials will end the need for further court proceedings and will clarify environmental law consistent with the purpose of the Clean Water Act – to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.

The new Bush administration rule also expressly allows hardrock mining waste, construction and demolition debris, and other types of harmful wastes to be dumped into rivers and streams across the country.