Press Release

Feb. 12, 2003

Contact: 
Andrew Souvall / Pallone (202) 225-4671 February 12, 2003 Betsy Hawkings / Shays (202) 225-5541

PALLONE, SHAYS INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO REVERSE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DECISION ON MOUNTAINTOP MINING

Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) introduced legislation today that would prohibit the dumping of industrial waste into rivers and streams, a practice that 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. "We cannot afford to waste another day, another hour, another minute if we want our children and our children's children to enjoy clean water. We simply won't have a world to live in if we continue our neglectful ways."

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. Mountaintop removal generates countless tons of waste, which coal companies dump into nearby valleys. The new definition of "fill material" is an attempt to legalize the dumping of countless tons of mountaintop removal coal mining waste--a practice that has already buried and destroyed 1,000 miles of Appalachian streams. The new 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. The Bush Administration's rule change would have a nationwide effect, allowing all industries to seek permits from the Army Corps to dump their wastes in water.