EPA Broadens Clean Water Regulations

The Obama administration expanded federal protection of U.S. waterways and drinking water supplies Wednesday, issuing a rule through the Environmental Protection Agency that also clarifies which rivers, streams, ponds and wetlands may be covered by the Clean Water Act.

The measure, known as the Clean Water Rule, has attracted intense opposition from fertilizer companies, the agriculture sector, energy producers and conservative lawmakers in Congress, who describe it as a “federal overreach” that will hamper economic growth and drive up costs for farmers and chemical producers.

The rule was proposed jointly last spring by the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, which were expected to release additional details Wednesday afternoon. It has previously been referred to as "Waters of the United States."

“For the water in the rivers and lakes in our communities that flow to our drinking water to be clean, the streams and wetlands that feed them need to be clean too,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement. “Protecting our water sources is a critical component of adapting to climate change impacts like drought, sea level rise, stronger storms, and warmer temperatures – which is why EPA and the Army have finalized the Clean Water Rule to protect these important waters, so we can strengthen our economy and provide certainty to American businesses.”

More than 117 million Americans draw their drinking water from streams that may not be protected by the Clean Water Act. The law, enacted in 1972, granted the federal government broad powers to limit pollution in so-called “navigable” waterways like the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. A pair of Supreme Court Decisions in 2001 and 2006, however, muddied the waters, making it unclear whether the act also covered smaller bodies like groundwater, headwaters, streams and wetlands that feed those larger waterways.

The Clean Water Rule restores some – but not all – of that authority, the EPA and Obama administration said.

“Too many of our waters have been left vulnerable to pollution,” President Barack Obama said in a statement. “This rule will provide the clarity and certainty businesses and industry need about which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act, and it will ensure polluters who knowingly threaten our waters can be held accountable.”

The rule, he added, was explicitly written to avoid “getting in the way of farming, ranching or forestry.”

The rule, part of a broader second-term push by the Obama administration to strengthen federal environmental protections, has provoked an outcry from conservative lawmakers since its proposal, as well as property developers, oil and gas producers, fertilizer companies, farmers, golf course owners, and others that rely on irrigation or whose work can flood nearby ditches and streambeds.

Earlier this month, the House passed a bill that would block the act, and across the Capitol, 30 Senators – including three Democrats – have cosponsored a bill that would require the Clean Water Rule be revised virtually wholesale.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and one of the Senate bill’s lead sponsors, called the EPA measure “outrageously broad.”

“There is bipartisan agreement that Washington bureaucrats have gone beyond their authority and have no business regulating irrigation ditches, isolated bonds and other ‘non-navigable’ waters as waters of the United States,” Barrasso said in a statement.

The Clean Water Rule reportedly upholds exemptions for agriculture. However, some tributaries that may be dry for prolonged periods but feed larger waterways when flooded will be covered by the new rule, federal officials said. Farmers must pay fees or obtain permits for work that may send polluted water into any body covered by the Clean Water Act.

Environmental groups, religious advocacy organizations and Democratic lawmakers welcomed the rule’s release Wednesday.

"Small streams and wetlands provide drinking water to roughly one in three Americans, and they must be protected from pollution at the source,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said in a statement. “The Obama Administration listened to all perspectives and developed a final rule that will help guarantee safe drinking water supplies for American families and businesses and restore much-needed certainty, consistency, and effectiveness to the Clean Water Act."

EPA held more than 400 meetings with outside groups and received more than 1 million public comments about the rule.

The agency also held a background conference call about the rule with some reporters ahead of its release Wednesday morning but, defying standard practice, excluded a number of media outlets. The EPA has attracted regular criticism from reporters and congressional lawmakers for its alleged lack of transparency, including McCarthy’s refusal to take questions from the media at a National Press Club event last year.