Senate Committee Hearing on CWA Amendments

The U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will be holding a hearing on Wednesday, April 9, to consider the controversial SB1870.  Like its House counterpart HR2421, this bill would expand the reach of the Clean Water Act to cover all waters in the United States by redfining "navigable waters" to include ALL intrastate and interstate waters.  Rhetoric in support of this bill is running high with proponents claiming the bill is necssary becasuse the U.S. Supreme Court has limited federal jurisdiction to actual navigable waters and adjacent wetlands through its SWANCC and Rapanos decisions.  This is a patently false assertion.  Neither the Corps nor the EPA has given that interpretation to these cases.  And, as we have pointed out in a previous post, the federal agencies continue to assert authority over virtually all waters.