Feingold Leads Effort To Protect Environment
Bill Aims to Restore the Intent of the Clean Water Act of 1972
U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) was joined today by Senators Jeffords (I-VT), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-VT), Kerry (D-MA), Boxer (D-CA), Dayton (D-MN), Schumer (D-NY) and Durbin (D-IL) in introducing the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act of 2005. Feingold's legislation will restore Clean Water Act protections for the full range of wetlands, lakes, streams, and other waters, as originally intended by Congress. Feingold's clean water bill is supported by a wide coalition of conservation organizations including the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Trout Unlimited, Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, Trout Unlimited, the Izaak Walton League, Earthjustice, and the Association of State Floodplain Managers.
"To protect our waters, Congress needs to re-affirm that the Clean Water Act protects all of our waters," Feingold said. "The bill we introduced today will do just that. Protecting our waters in Wisconsin and the nation is critical to the hunting and fishing that draw millions of people outdoors every year."
Feingold's legislation aims to protect isolated wetlands, which play an important role by absorbing flood-waters, preventing pollution from reaching our rivers and streams, and providing crucial habitat for most of the nation's ducks and other waterfowl, as well as hundreds of other bird, fish, shellfish and amphibian species. Loss of these waters would have a devastating effect on the nation's environment and tourism industry. In addition, by narrowing the water and wetland areas subject to federal protections, the Supreme Court's 2001 decision also shifted more of the economic burden for regulating wetlands to state and local governments.
Feingold's bill does three things:
It makes it clear that the full range of wetlands, lakes, streams, and other waters are protected by the Clean Water Act.
It deletes the term "navigable" from the Clean Water Act to clarify that Congress's primary concern in 1972 was not to limit clean water protection to navigable waters, but to protect all of the nation's waters from pollution.
It affirms Congress's constitutional authority to regulate the nation's waters and wetlands so that our waterways will be protected by federal law.
http://feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/releases/05/04/2005427620.html